PCT puts £10k towards pharmacy consulting room

Brighton and Hove City Teaching PCT has given £10,000 to a community pharmacy to fund the building of a consultation room.

Pharmacist Manish Suchak said a practice nurse would use the room at Coldean Pharmacy to supplement healthcare provision in the local area. Two part-time satellite surgeries currently serve the Coldean estate, but provision is likely to cease in the next few years as one GP is nearing retirement, and the other surgery is run from dilapidated premises and is on the verge of closure, Mr Suchak explained.

Expected to be built by next April, the consulting room will be around 200sq ft in area, and contain a sink, disabled toilet and medical couch to allow the nurse to work three or four sessions a week, Mr Suchak said. The pharmacy would use the room the rest of the time to provide PCT-funded services such as EHC and smoking cessation, he added.

In addition, Coldean Pharmacy is one of three stores that will start piloting a minor ailments scheme before the end of the year. The project will see patients who are exempt from prescription charges referred from their GP for free supplies of P medicines, and if successful, will be rolled out to other Brighton pharmacies.

 Source Chemist & Druggist