BMJ  2007;334:1180 (9 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.39234.436528.3A

Letters

Pharmacists in primary care

Study shows wrong people, wrong skills, wrong tools . . .

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Salter et al identify some deficiencies in a small sample of pharmacist consultations.¹ Their results say more about the need for consultation skills training and the context of the pharmacists and patients involved in this study than they do about the concept of pharmacist medication review.

The pharmacists involved in this study were the wrong people because they had no connection with the patient, the general practitioner, the local pharmacy or the hospital department and therefore lacked credibility. They had the wrong skills because they scrupulously avoided exploring patients' ideas and beliefs and persisted in a predetermined agenda that patients did not identify with. They had the wrong tools because they did not have the medical records or any indication for the medicines. They were doing the wrong job because people who have just had their medicines reviewed are not likely to benefit from a further review. And the timing . . . [Full text of this article]

University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9UT

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Articles

"I haven't even phoned my doctor yet." The advice giving role of the pharmacist during consultations for medication review with patients aged 80 or more: qualitative discourse analysis

Charlotte Salter, Richard Holland, Ian Harvey, and Karen Henwood
BMJ 2007 334: 1101. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Does home based medication review keep older people out of hospital? The HOMER randomised controlled trial

Richard Holland, Elizabeth Lenaghan, Ian Harvey, Richard Smith, Lee Shepstone, Alistair Lipp, Maria Christou, David Evans, and Christopher Hand
BMJ 2005 330: 293. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]