Pharmacy visits pilot
Download (PDF 997.39 KB)Summary of report content
Healthwatch Lambeth gather information on people’s experiences of health and social care services and there are times when it is appropriate for Healthwatch Lambeth to see and hear for themselves how services are being delivered: these visits are called ‘Enter and View’, they are not inspections.
Healthwatch Lambeth visited Pharmacy in June 2015.
The summary of findings highlighted areas in relation to patient feedback, staff feedback and observation. Healthwatch Lambeth overall were impressed with the service on offer and confirmed that they would be happy to return to each of the pharmacies for advice and support. One team said: ‘This is what a pharmacy should be like’. One visitor has already taken up the advice they were given to visit their GP about their blood pressure. Others said, ‘The visit has made me feel happier to ask staff questions about my health” and ‘I really enjoyed the visit and chatting to the staff. They were really friendly and answered all my questions.’ In fact, all our visitors told Healthwatch Lambeth that they enjoyed their visits to the six pharmacies and 10 of the 11 experts by experience confirmed that they would like to do more visits to other pharmacies and different local health services.
Healthwatch Lambeth recommend all pharmacy staff should undertake learning disability awareness training, such as the session to be developed from this initiative. All pharmacies should have some easy read materials available and ideally, on display, such as those available to download on the Easy Health website. Where pharmacies are close to day centres and other community venues, they should consider building links with these community assets in order to develop the local community’s understanding and use of pharmacy services. Pharmacies should regularly review the physical accessibility of their premises, to identify and remove clutter and maximise opportunities to improve access in the longer term through planned refurbishments. Pharmacies should provide clarity of information about standard charges for health checks.