If pharmacists were allowed prescribe medicines in certain limited circumstances, it could reduce pressure on GP surgeries and hospital accident and emergency departments, the Irish Pharmaceutical Union (IPU) claimed yesterday.
Its president, Dr Karl Hilton, made the claim on a day when there was overcrowding in hospital A&E departments with 248 patients on trolleys, according to figures from the Irish Nurses Organisation.
Dr Hilton said pharmacists wanted the ability to deal with routine ailments which the IPU believes should not necessitate a time-consuming visit to a doctor's surgery.
"Pharmacists are available in every community. They have exceptionally long opening hours and they are staffed by highly qualified and knowledgeable healthcare professionals. In this day and age, it's ludicrous not to take full advantage of this and maximise the benefit which they can give to the healthcare system," he said.
Speaking in Dublin at a seminar organised by the IPU on the role of the community pharmacy in developing new healthcare strategies, Dr Hilton added that experience from the UK showed the proposal could work effectively.
Mr Ash Soni, chairman of the National Pharmaceutical Association, the representative body for UK pharmacists, told the meeting that pharmacists in 50 per cent of primary care trusts in the UK already had the power to prescribe for minor ailments and a growing number had qualified as "supplementary prescribers".
Dr Hilton reiterated what the IPU told the Dáil health committee last April, that pharmacists could also save the State up to €100 million a year if new legislation enabled them to dispense generic substitutes for drugs prescribed by doctors and if they were more involved in medicines management initiatives with patients.
The IPU hopes to meet the Tánaiste and Minister for Health, Ms Harney to discuss its views in the near future.