Issue - meetings

Mike Keen of the Local Pharmaceutical Committee, Julia Ross, Director of Public Engagement, West Kent Primary Care Trust and Jayne Macdonald Head of Primary Care and Community Contracts, Eastern & Coastal Kent Primary Care Trust will be in attendance for this item.

(Mike Keen, Chief Executive of the Kent Local Pharmaceutical Committee, Professor John Butler, the Chairman of Kent and Medway Pharmaceutical Regulations Committee, Julia Ross, Director of Civic Engagement, West Kent PCT, Jayne Macdonald, Head of Primary Care and Community Contracts, Eastern and Coastal Kent PCT and Anne Bretherton, Chief Pharmacist, West Kent PCT, were in attendance for this item)

(1)       The Chairman welcomed Mr Keen to the meeting and invited him to give his presentation.  Mr Keen’s presentation (attached as Appendix 3) covered the following:-

·              What is a Local Pharmaceutical Committee?

·              Where does it draw its powers from?

·              How does pharmacy help to improve services to patients?

·              How does pharmacy help public health?

·              What is control of entry?

(2)       Professor Butler from the Kent and Medway Pharmaceutical Regulations Committee, the body responsible for awarding contracts to applicants for pharmacies, explained that the number of pharmacies in Kent and Medway over the past 15 years had remained approximately the same.  However, the location of the pharmacies had changed; and large pharmacy companies had taken an increased share of the market.  There was a tendency to have more pharmacies in supermarkets and also to move pharmacies out of high streets and to co-locate with doctors’ surgeries, which ran in parallel with the increase in the redevelopment/relocating of doctors’ surgeries.  Professor Butler explained that in rural areas under regulations it had been possible since 1982, with consent, for doctors to dispense, as often in these areas it was not commercially viable for pharmacists to operate.

(3)       Ms Bretherton stated that in Kent the PCTs were looking at formally setting in place a Clinical Governance Framework based on the national programme.  East Kent PCT had the responsibility to carry out the performance monitoring visit.  In West Kent every pharmacy had a visit and pharmacist would go on the visit with a lay Member.  This visit would be pre-arranged and anything arising from it would form part of an action plan.  PCTs gave pharmacies help and support so that they could address any issues identified as requiring action.  In relation to a question on counterfeit drugs, she stated that the PCT had no influence as this was a national problem.  In relation to unused drugs, Ms MacDonald and Ms Bretherton stated that they headed teams of Prescribing Advisors who visited GP practices and supported GPs.  Members asked a number of questions, and received responses, regarding the following points:-

·              As regards the regulation of pharmacists, it was explained that they had a  professional code of ethics and that their professional  body, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, played a regulatory role (although the regulatory and representative functions of the Society were to be separated under planned reforms to the regulation of healthcare professionals).

·              All pharmacies had to agree their opening hours with the contracting PCT. New pharmacies had to specify their total opening hours and their core contract hours, which had to be at least 40 hours per week.  When the Pharmaceutical Regulations Committee  ...  view the full minutes text for item 35