Pharmacists will soon be enabled to prescribe medication for a range of common conditions, improving access and quality of treatment for patients: [ Ссылка ]
TRANSCRIPT:
Hi everyone. I'm pleased to announce that we're expanding the role of pharmacists in Ireland. I've been a strong advocate for pharmacy and for supporting our pharmacists in them doing more. They are our most accessible healthcare professionals and we all rely on them. We rely on their expertise. We rely on their advice every day. But pharmacists say that they can do more. They want to do more and I fully agree. Last year, I established the Expert Taskforce to figure out the best ways to expand the work that pharmacists can do in all of our towns, in all of our villages. This morning, I've published that report. And can I say a thanks to the team who did the work. They put in a huge amount of work. They've done a great job. A big change that they recommend is to introduce pharmacists prescribing for common conditions. So what do we mean by 'common conditions'? These are things like hay fever, minor skin rashes, conjunctivitis...things like this. Non-chronic conditions which we get occasionally, for which most people just last a few days and are easily treated. Some other countries already have pharmacists prescribing for common conditions. So we know that it works. We know it's safe. Having pharmacists prescribe for common conditions is going to be a major change for the better. It represents a pretty fundamental change and step forward in terms of community pharmacy. But there are other benefits as well. We all know GPs are really busy and this move will help to take the pressure off the GPs in treating patients that the pharmacists can treat, so that the GPs can treat more people as well. This is a really important reform. Having pharmacists prescribe for common conditions is going to be a major change for the better.
