David, who dispenses 11,000-12,000 items a month, described a range of issues that he has been able to resolve by using the Dorset Care Record (DCR):

  • Patients often visit the pharmacy to find that the prescription they are hoping to collect is not there. This can easily be followed up through the DCR
  • Patients regularly forget the name of the medication that their GP has recommended to them to purchase, this can be found through the DCR
  • The DCR enables David to check whether an item that a patient is enquiring about has already been prescribed
  • David is now able to confirm with a patient whether a specific medication that they are enquiring about has been prescribed in the past
  • In one particular situation described by David, the pharmacy received a prescription for an injection that was needed almost immediately but it was a non-formulary item and therefore it wasn’t in stock. By looking at the DCR, David was able to contact the right person to get the prescription changed to the formulary item that they had in stock and get the patient the medication they needed

The DCR paints a fuller picture of the patient; including test results, upcoming appointments, social care arrangements, demographic details, diagnoses and much more. It helps community pharmacists to understand the support that a patient has in place to help them to take their medication in the right way, plus many other vital pieces of information that save time.

The DCR has given David the information he needs to be able to provide an efficient and successful service. He ends the conversation by noting that the availability of this information nationally would be beneficial in the future, to overcome current geographic care boundaries.

For further details, listen to the full conversation here: