Identifying patient needs is vital to securing commissions for services. To illustrate this process, let’s consider an example.

A primary care organisation (PCO) has identified respiratory disease as a specific issue within a locality. This could be expected in this case because the residents are drawn from lower socio-economic groups, there is a higher than average incidence of smoking and the area was traditionally a mining community.

A trend shows that a new approach to care may be needed

Looking at data from the local medical practice, you can see that the practice has a lower incidence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) than the wider locality, but you can also see that they have a higher incidence of admission of COPD patients with exacerbations. This suggests that patients with exacerbations of COPD are not being managed effectively.

Solutions community pharmacy could suggest

Having identified a patient need, the pharmacy must devise a solution. How can pharmacists contribute to the support of patients with COPD and keep them out of hospital?

A simple intervention would be to undertake a medicines use review for all patients with COPD, including a check that they have sufficient supplies of recovery treatment (steroids and antibiotics) and that they are confident about when these should be used.

An alternative would be to develop a patient group direction for COPD patients who are experiencing the first stages of an exacerbation. Patients experiencing symptoms could have their symptoms assessed and obtain supplies of appropriate medication from their local community pharmacy.