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Pharmacists can prescribe in England from Wednesday 1st February.

(105 Posts)
Urmstongran Mon 29-Jan-24 12:56:57

PHARMACISTS will be given extra powers to see and treat patients from this Wednesday and free up as many as 30 million GP appointments per year.

Under Pharmacy First plans, people will be able to visit pharmacies like Boots to receive treatment for simple and common illnesses, instead of seeing a doctor.

They will be able to walk into more than 10,000 chemists in England for consultations without needing to book an appointment, under the scheme.

Pharmacists have been told they can treat and prescribe medication for seven conditions:
earache,
sore throats,
sinusitis,
shingles,
impetigo,
urinary tract infections and
infected insect bites and stings.

I think this is a great idea. It frees up more GP appointments.
What do you think?

Callistemon21 Thu 01-Feb-24 16:17:56

HowVeryDareYou2

maggic

UTI treatment only for women aged 16 - 64.

That's very disappointing (I'll be 65 in a couple of months), but I think it's because UTIs in older women can lead to complications.

UTIs in younger women can lead to complications too.

They need proper diagnosis and the correct antibiotics.

annsixty Thu 01-Feb-24 16:24:06

I have started another thread about this as I didn’t know about this one.
My D received very prompt treatment this morning for an infected insect bite.
She feels very unwell but it could have been much more serious if she had waited for a GP appointment.
We are very grateful this has started today.

Pittcity Thu 01-Feb-24 17:35:19

The Day Lewis website has a form for you to book an appointment with the pharmacist.

maddyone Thu 01-Feb-24 23:17:14

Pittcity
No problem, I now understand.
Of course pharmacists spend longer on the pharmacology because that is their course. My daughter spent her first two years at university studying physiology, pharmacology, and something else that I can’t remember. Her third year was her specialist BSc year, she studied Speech and Speech Therapy (children with speech difficulties or disorders, stroke patients, etc) and then she did three years of Clinical Practice in a variety of hospitals and rotations in different specialties. Then she graduated as a Doctor of Medicine. Two years further training followed, F1 and F2, again various rotations in one hospital. Then four years further training before becoming a Registered General Practitioner. The training is far more broad than that of a Pharmacist, as it needs to be to deal with disease. Pharmacology deals with what different drugs do, how they do it, and interactions between drugs.