title: An audit of prescribing for type 2 diabetes in primary care: optimising the role of the community pharmacist in the primary healthcare team.
abstract: The Government has identified that the pharmacist should have greater involvement in the management of long-term conditions. The aim of this audit was to determine the adherence to National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidelines for type 2 diabetes patients and identify whether there is a potential role for pharmacists in their long-term management. All prescribing, in 194 patients, was within guidance for anti-hyperglycaemics. In all, 87.4% of patients prescribed an anti-hypertensive were prescribed an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor or equivalent. A large number of patients remain uncontrolled with respect to blood glucose or blood pressure. There are four potential reasons for this: patients require additional therapy; current therapy has not been optimised; current therapy is not working; or the patient is not fully adherent. Therefore, there may be a role for the pharmacist either in therapy optimisation or improving patient adherence to current therapy in order to support more patients reaching national targets.
authors.affiliation: Medicines Management Research Team, School of Pharmacy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. m.twigg@uea.ac.uk
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Twigg
authors.forename: James A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Desborough
authors.forename: Debi
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bhattacharya
authors.forename: David J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Wright
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D003157:Community Pharmacy Services; D003924:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / Q000188:drug therapy*; D006801:Humans; D008485:Medical Audit; D008875:Middle Aged; D010348:Patient Care Team; D010595:Pharmacists; D011320:Primary Health Care; D024382:Professional Role; D013222:State Medicine; D006113:United Kingdom