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The outgoing chief executive of the General Pharmaceutical Council has said that with community pharmacies increasingly providing clinical services, patients have “changing expectations” around the pharmacy environment that are not being met. 

Duncan Rudkin, who will stand down from the GPhC on December 31, told the Avicenna conference in London yesterday that while the “public acceptance of services from community pharmacy is very positive,” there is also “a challenge from the public” around how those services are delivered. 

Mr Rudkin said that over the last two years the regulator has held regular focus groups with members of the public to learn about their experiences of pharmacy services, revealing that there are particular concerns around confidentiality.  

Patients complained to the GPhC about “…something as seemingly simple as, why do I have to give my address when I’ve got my neighbours standing behind me and I don’t know who’s listening,” said Mr Rudkin.

He recounted the words of one patient who said: “If this is a healthcare service, then I expect it to feel like a healthcare environment.”

He continued: “That has implications for how you design and use your space, and of course the quality of and the use that you make of your consultation rooms. 

“But interestingly, it has a real impact on patients.”

Responding to Mr Rudkin’s comments, one business owner said their pharmacy "has old carpets and needs a bigger consultation room to make it more of a healthcare setting" but added that they are "in overdraft" and there is "no money" to renovate it.

The GPhC chief replied that he was “not surprised” by this response and acknowledged that this is “a massive moment of challenge for [pharmacies] financially”.

But he added that the regulator shouldn’t “shy away” from speaking out “when patients tell us things we feel you need to hear”.

He encouraged the audience of independent contractors to convey these messages to sector leaders and representatives and “use that information to support the case that you need to make that transition… to become that healthcare environment”. 

Moving on to the question of whether there are enough designated prescribing practitioners to train up incoming cohorts of independent prescribing pharmacists, Mr Rudkin said: “The evidence in terms of the numbers is that that is looking OK, but of course there could be some local variation around that.

“As the numbers of prescribers continues to grow within the profession, that's a greater pool of potential designated prescribing practitioners as well.” 

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