There is only one pharmacy in our 600 square mile practice area. As with many rural areas, this means that GP practices not only prescribe necessary medication for patients but also dispense the medication to the patient. We are unique in that we dispense to the vast majority of our patients. Given our list size of 11,200 patients this means we dispense up to 1000 items a day from our three surgeries (almost double what a large city pharmacy would dispense). This workload is continuing to rise and becoming increasingly more complex. This causes issues not only for our patients, but for our practice team working under increased pressure.

Current challenges:

• A major challenge for the practice is being able to turn around patients’ medication orders from the point of order to dispensing due to the well-known challenges of sourcing medication that is increasingly affecting pharmacies and dispensing doctors.
• We also have a very elderly patient population who tend to rely on family or friends to collect their medication. Those people are increasingly working away from the area and hence struggle to get back by 6pm to collect their family member’s medication.
• Limitations of our IT system also mean we cannot currently confirm to our volume of dispensing patients via text message or email that their medication is ready to collect which we know causes frustration to many of our patients.
• Staffing recruitment and retention can be an issue in a rural area such as ours, the use of technology would support our team and boost resilience.

Whilst we do generate income from dispensing (as a community pharmacy would), in our practice, the dispensing income has always been used to support the provision of medical care across our rural area and three surgeries.  Our funding covers our main site in Llanfyllin only. With the increasing pressures and underfunding of general practice as a whole, that entire income is now needed to support funding the dispensary staff and primary care team. For more information on primary care funding issues, please visit: Wales save our surgeries campaign (bma.org.uk)

What are we proposing?

We want to bring in a prescription collection unit for each of our sites. These units will allow our patients to collect their medication at a convenient time for them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They will also help us future proof our practice, manage increased demand on our services, improve our services, and support staff retention and moral.

We have spoken with other practices that are using these machines and they have seen a huge positive effect on both their patients and staff.

For those patients who choose to sign up to collecting their medication from the collection unit they will receive a text informing them that their medication is ready to collect at their chosen site.

This text will also contain a unique code which will allow them to collect their medication from the collection machine at a time convenient them, either inside or outside our core opening hours.

By patients using this service, this will allow our dispensing staff to give more support to patients who need more help with their medication, medication queries and explanations of how to take medications and relay messages from the Doctors about changes.

Patients who just need to pick up medication, working people and those collecting for relatives would not have to wait in the surgery to collect, hence saving their time.  The medication dispensing machines will be an added service at the practice and will be very much patient choice as to whether they wish to collect their medication in this way as dispensary counters will remain manned during opening hours.

These machines cost in the region of £35,000 per machine, hence this fundraiser is a huge request for our population as we will need three. If you would like to know more about these units and how they will benefit our patients and practice, please visit the following links:

Pharmaself24 Automated Prescription-Collection Solution (omnicell.co.uk)

MedPoint: Automated Prescription Collection | 24/7 Medicine Collection (medpointuk.com)

Benefits:

• By purchasing a dispensing collection unit for each surgery, we aim to provide a safe and secure way for patients to collect their pre ordered medication at a time convenient to them.
• To reduce queues at peak times for patients collecting their medication
• To give patients the confidence that their medication is ready for collection without making a lengthy journey when it may not be ready.
• To allow our dispensary team more time to spend with those patients who would still need to collect their medication via the dispensary during working hours to discuss their medications or to ask for advice.
• To support our dispensing team in performing their daily tasks and support staff retention and morale.

We are asking if anyone can support us in the way of a donation to our fundraiser however big or small.

If you would like to find out more information about the campaign please contact Juliet Sagar, our Managing Partner via email - Practice.Manager.w96012@wales.nhs.uk

If you would like to make a contribution to our Fundraising campaign, please make your payment to our practice donations account using the following details:

Account Name: Llanfyllin Group Practice

Sort Code: 40-30-13

Account Number: 81388606

Please use the reference 'Pharmacy' when making payment.

We thank you again for your support in helping us to provide a better service for our patients and support our team.

𝓛𝓵𝓪𝓷𝓯𝔂𝓵𝓵𝓲𝓷 𝓖𝓻𝓸𝓾𝓹 𝓟𝓻𝓪𝓬𝓽𝓲𝓬𝓮