Primary Care Pharmacy Resilience: Pharmacotherapy Service in the Time of Covid-19

The coronavirus pandemic has significantly impacted healthcare worldwide, disrupting services in 90% of countries [1]. In response, alternative working practices have been adopted within healthcare to mitigate disruption and reduce the COVID-19 transmission risk [2]. Within UK general practice, innovative work solutions include remote patient consultations and telephone triage systems [3-5]. Whilst studies have reported both positive and negative impacts of the pandemic on GPs within the UK [4, 6, 7], few have focused on the impact on pharmacy personnel within general practice. The importance of understanding this is illuminated by the systematic, and costly, introduction of pharmacists within UK general practice settings to overcome challenges associated with increasing primary care workloads and recruitment/retention challenges [8]. Within Scotland, a £20.4m investment has been made since 2015 to strengthen primary care through integration of the pharmacy workforce and development of a Scottish pharmacotherapy service [9]. It is unclear the impact of the pandemic on this changing primary care landscape in Scotland.