Teesside pharmacies to help relieve pressure on GPs by giving treatments
People won't need a GP appointment or prescription for seven conditions
People in Teesside will not need a GP appointment or prescription to get treatment for seven common conditions from now on.
Medicine and access to advice for sinusitis, sore throat, acute otitis media, infected insect bite, impetigo, shingles and uncomplicated urinary tract infections in women is now available in pharmacies.
The NHS reckons the service will help relieve and save 10 million GP appointments by next winter.
Sandie Keal, Chief Officer of Community Pharmacy Tees Valley, said: "It's not only that we can access but we have to tools to treat patients therefore we don't have to refer back to the GP. We will be treating as and when it's appropriate to do so. It's very much you'd attend a pharmacy, have a clinical discussion and then you can be treated if appropriate.
"There are specific criteria so for some of the conditions there's an age criteria that you'd have to meet, and it's for really those conditions which can be managed elsewhere very, very quickly and we can now treat, where previously we couldn't.
"If somebody needs an antibiotic they'll be offered an antibiotic. If it's not appropriate to do so then we have to tools and assessment measures in order to do that, so it'll mean fewer referrals, less steps for a patient to get help and it'll be the service that pharmacists have been wanting for a very long time.
"I think any new service will add some workload to the pharmacy. I think what we need to be mindful of is these patients already go to a pharmacy. We then have to refer them elsewhere which all takes time, so we're probably not going to be doing huge amounts of extra time but we'll be able to manage the patient much quicker and much easier.
"We'll be doing exactly the same as you would get if you presented at a GP. However, if somebody presents and they're outside the exclusion criteria or we're concerned about that patient, then we do have the facility to onwardly refer as we currently do if they need further intervention."