Community pharmacy as a whole ‘lacks ambition’, Hemant Patel, secretary of NE London LPC, told the Avicenna conference in northern Cyprus.

‘It worries me that our national leaders are focused on short-term goals, and not the big ticket agendas,’ he said. ‘Pharmacy has got to have a plan.’

There is a strong case for personalised care for long-term conditions, and a more holistic approach to improving outcomes, he said. We need to bring health and social care together, he said, tackling issues such as mental health, domestic violence, alcoholism and debt, by changing the scope of community pharmacy and working collaboratively with other agencies. ‘So, we dispense, but is that care? What about the outcomes? Does telling someone they need to take one tablet every morning lead to compliance? No.’ We must look at ways of coaching people using psychological tools, for example, he suggested.

Are we solving the old problem or a new problem? Are we offering something on the government's shopping list? He finds it ‘shocking’ that some pharmacists are still not able to deliver NMS and MURs. ‘This is an unsustainable position for pharmacy,’ he said.

Closer to home, pharmacists should think of themselves of team leaders, and doing more to delegate responsibility to their teams. Mr Patel proposed a system for strengthening leadership that pharmacists and managers can follow.

_{Hemant Patel was speaking to delegates at the recent Avicenna conference in Cyprus}