Following our Hepatitis, Check It Before You Wreck It piece, published earlier in the week, a number of readers came on to enquire as to why neither of the pharmacies in Ventnor were providing the free Hepatitis check.
Kevin Noble, Community Pharmacy Lead for the IW NHS has been in touch to explain the reason why. It all sounds perfectly reasonable to us. Read on for the explanation.
I wish we could have placed this service in every Pharmacy on the Island, but I had to make a decision at the outset, due to limitation of funding, to select areas of the Island that provided services to people we already knew to be at risk of contracting hepatitis B and C due to lifestyle issues.
The reason why Ventnor along with the West Wight and Bembridge, do not have a participating Pharmacy is down to the fact that we have considered “at risk” groups, from data we have, and have placed the service in “identified hotspots”.
The group of people most at risk of contracting blood borne viral infections are injecting drug users, and as Community Pharmacies also offer other support services to this client group we can easily identify the areas where these people access Pharmacy services.
Currently our data shows that Ventnor, and the other areas identified are not active regarding service provision to this group of clients.
Another reason why the Ventnor Pharmacies are not part of the service is that there has been, of late, no continuity of Pharmacist at these practices. This in itself presents a challenge to the PCT as there was no Pharmacist in permanent post to train to deliver the service!
Looking at other services, for example, emergency contraception, audit of data has shown us that people living in particular areas often access “services of a delicate nature” away from their home town, and as there are Pharmacies offering this service in Shanklin and Sandown, it is anticipated that people living in Ventnor that wish to, can access this service from these Pharmacies.
Thanks to Kevin for getting in touch and hopefully this answers the queries from readers raised earlier in the week.
Image: faeryboots
