Community Pharmacy

Now in its fourth edition, this best-selling book is fully updated to address the ever increasing demands on healthcare professionals to deliver high-quality patient care. A multitude of factors impinge on healthcare delivery today, including an ageing population, more sophisticated medicines, high patient expectation and changing health service infrastructure. Time demands on primary care doctors have caused other models of service delivery to be adopted across the world, leading to ongoing changes in the traditional boundaries of care between doctors, nurses, and pharmacists. Certain medical tasks are now being performed by nurses and pharmacists, for example prescribing. Healthcare policies to encourage patients to manage their own health have led to more medicines becoming available over the counter, allowing community pharmacists to manage and treat a wide range of conditions. Further deregulation of medicines to treat acute illness from different therapeutic areas seems likely. Government policy now encourages chronic disease management as a self-care activity, and could well be the largest area for future growth of reclassification of medicines. Pharmacists, now more than ever before, need to be able to recognise the signs and symptoms, and use an evidence-based approach to treatment.

Community Pharmacy is intended for all non-medical prescribers but especially for pharmacists, from undergraduate students to experienced practitioners.

Key Features

Key features

 

• Guidance for arriving at a differential diagnosis

• Practical prescribing tips

• Trigger points for referral boxes

• Other hints and tips boxes

• Specifc questions to ask boxes

• Case studies

• Self-assessment questions

 

 Consistent approach gives:

 

• Anatomy overview

• History taking and physical examination

• Prevalence and epidemiology

• Aetiology

• Arriving at a differential diagnosis

• Clinical features

• Conditions to eliminate

 

Likely causes

Unlikely causes

Very unlikely causes

 

• Evidence base for OTC medicine

• Practical prescribing and product selection

 

New to this Edition

• More on the examination of eyes, ears and mouth

• New sections on future-proofing (vaccinations etc.)

• New material covering inter-professional education for clinical skills.

 

Now with a free accompanying book on StudentConsult which also gives additional material on:

• evidence-based medicine
• videos on physical examination
• additional written case studies
• more multiple-choice questions

Author Information

By Paul Rutter, FFRPS MRPharmS PhD, Professor of Pharmacy Practice, School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK.

Product Reviews

'Excellent structure and layout, great content plus evidence based medicine. Easy to read, useful imagery and diagrams simple to understand but very detailed.'

 

'Really good. I am a 3rd year student but I know this is a life book and will be very useful in the future once I am a pharmacist.'

 

'Set out well, good and to the point. Highlights key points very well. Excellent revision tool for a pharmacy student.'

 

'Excellent book...great illustrations and easy to read!'

 

'Useful indeed. . Great for anyone in the pharmacy business. If you read it regularly you'll be a pro at responding to symptoms and it is easy to understand so anyone can actually use it really.'

 

'I use this regularly in my practice and this book got me through my degree and pre-reg. A must buy.'

 

'I bought this book for my daughter who is a community pharmacist. She has been qualified for 2 years. She finds it very useful for her CPD and everyday cases that come into the pharmacy. I would recommend to other pharmacists and students.'

 

'A very valuable book. Lots of accurate and up to date information. Invaluable for dealing with problems that walk into the pharmacy.'

 

'The way in which the book is written offers the reader a broader comprehension of medical terminology, diagnosis and physiological processes - I highly recommend it to individuals who wish to/are practice/practicing pharmacy.'