Pharmacists to perform minor operations
- deskpilot
- 1 hour ago
- 1 min read
Pharmacies in England with a treatment room will soon be able to perform minor operations to help speed up care and ease pressure on GPs and hospitals.
Pharmacists can currently prescribe medication for some common medical conditions, mostly the embarrassing ones. ‘Extra large tube of haemorrhoid cream for Mrs Higgins?’ ‘Yes, fine.’
The new initiative will allow pharmacists to look at rashes on sensitive parts of the body, criticise personal hygiene and sexual proclivities, and to undertake minor procedures like colonoscopies, or, in emergencies, to deliver babies or remove a ruptured appendix.
‘It’s all very well,’ says Max Strength, a chemist from Bolton, ‘but my treatment room is only the size of a phone box. Flu jabs are okay, as I don’t need to do the paperwork in the treatment cupboard. For other procedures, there’s no room for undressing, so people would have to do that outside. So I’m well-equipped to do standing up procedures, but nothing more adventurous.
‘I don’t see why I need to look at embarrassing rashes. The current system works perfectly fine – you text a picture to the GP receptionist. She looks it up on Google, or, if it’s alarming enough, posts it on some WhatsApp groups. And she gets back to you with some treatment options and/or directions to A&E.’
The government expects the initiative to reduce waiting lists by up to 20%, mainly because many people would rather die than discuss their problems with their chemist.
