The executive is continuing its work already underway to “expand the skills” of certain health professionals, particularly in the city. Since the beginning of August already, pharmacists or midwives can prescribe and administer certain vaccines, such as the flu or certain reminders of mandatory vaccines.
The Prime Minister now authorizes pharmacists to “prescribe antibiotics” for cystitis – urinary tract infections – and angina, “as soon as they have carried out a test to confirm the bacterial origin” of the disease and an interview with the patient. He will thus be able to “deliver directly” the antibiotic, to “promote access” to these routine acts of care.
These rapid tests are done by means of a urine dipstick – for cystitis – or a long cotton swab at the back of the throat – for angina – in order to check that treatment is necessary. In this case, a treatment can be provided by the pharmacist: respectively fosfomycin and amoxicillin. Products that most pharmacies already have. By doing so, the government hopes to unclog doctors’ offices and speed up procedures for patients.
“Pharmacists will be trained so that they can determine if there is a pathology behind it. In this case, the patient will be referred to a doctor, “explains the Ministry of Health to our colleagues from Parisian.
But the decision is not to the taste of general practitioners. “It’s a cover-up measure to say that the government is acting”, judge Agnès Giannotti, president of MG France. “If I have one consultation for cystitis a month, it’s the end of the world and it’s going fast! What takes a long time is to take care of psychiatric patients, chronic patients, complex pathologies, ”she recalls.
The reform will be proposed as part of the next Social Security financing bill, presented in September.
