TY - JOUR T1 - Management of patients with hypertension: general practice and community pharmacy working together JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 477 LP - 478 DO - 10.3399/bjgp14X681553 VL - 64 IS - 626 AU - Richard West AU - Matthew Isom Y1 - 2014/09/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/64/626/477.abstract N2 - Community pharmacy is a highly skilled resource that is untapped. As the dispensing process is further mechanised and drug costs squeezed, pharmacists could be performing more complex tasks than currently by contributing to clinical care and health improvement. This could enable GPs to change their case mix, allowing primary care to achieve more, as set out in the recent joint statement from the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS).1 In Scotland, the Chronic Medication Service is a good example and will, ultimately, encompass prescribing. From 2015 all schools of pharmacy will have prescribing competencies embedded in their curricula. In England, the Medicines Use Review (MUR) and the New Medicine Service (NMS) represent a first step in the process.However, the NHS is limited by capacity and cost. It is seeking to transfer work from expensive environments, like hospitals, to more cost-effective environments, like general practice. At Woolpit Health Centre (Richard West’s practice), the consultation rate per patient/year has increased from 5.6 to over 6, and average time per patient has exceeded 11 minutes during the last 5 years.Pharmacists are trained in the use of medicines and to reduce risk, and are effective at ensuring best practice is implemented. A shift to risk management needs to go alongside taking on more clinical responsibility for the care of patients.General practice and community pharmacy could work together on the management … ER -