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The new pharmacy contract gives you the opportunity to offer extra services, including MURs. Mary Allen FRPharmS explains
Are you feeling excited or daunted? The new pharmacy contract includes new opportunities for (fee-based) participation in Medicines Use Review (MUR). This will be an Advanced service so, of course, you don't have to join in. But many pharmacists will embrace the opportunity to formalise what they are, to some extent, doing already.
What is MUR?
MUR is about helping patients to use medicines more effectively, rather than clinical review, although it may also provide opportunities to make recommendations to prescribers about clinical or cost effectiveness. MUR aims to establish patients' understanding of how medicines should be taken, what they are for, and how/if/ when they use them in practice. It identifies poor or ineffective use and finds ways to improve this. It identifies side effects or drug interactions that may affect use of medicines, and reduces wastage.
Before you can get going with MUR, you must have a designated consultation area - the specification says so. This must be somewhere where you can sit down with the patient and talk without being overheard by other staff or customers. So, if your pharmacy doesn't have anywhere you can do this, you need to be working on it. Easier said than done in busy pharmacies with small premises, but essential for moving forward.
Gaining accreditation
Accreditation is the next step. To ensure consistency, pharmacists must pass an assessment, provided by a Higher Education Institution (HEI), based on nationally agreed competencies. The competencies may look rather daunting, but they are achievable.
It's expected that a number of HEIs will run courses and be able to accredit pharmacists for the provision of Advanced services. One way to become accredited is via the Skills for the Future distance- learning programme, developed by PSNC with Professor Clare Mackie of the Medway School of Pharmacy. It's not compulsory to complete a course prior to undergoing assessment - some pharmacists may already have appropriate skills and knowledge.
So, let's take a look at some of the interventions listed in the MUR service specification. Firstly, is the patient experiencing problems in ordering and obtaining their medicines?
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