ABSTRACT
The role of the community pharmacist was isolated geographically and politically from most other workers in primary care locations. Pharmacists in the community probably see the majority of chronic repeat medicine takers more regularly than anyone else in the primary care team. The issues of cost containment and quality of prescribing are inextricably mixed, and pharmaceutical advisers, as well as government advisers, have poured prodigious effort into advising general practitioners on their decision making, so far with limited success. Prescribing is characterised by a huge number of events in which dozens of individuals play a part. The National Prescribing Centre envisages that primary care trusts will eventually appoint directors of medication management. If the brief is to unify the patient-specific and policy-driven prescribing initiatives in an imaginative way, co-ordinating the entire multi-disciplinary team, this will be a promising initiative.
