Drugs and professional interactions: the modern day pharmacist.

Pharmacists are not yet fully integrated into the primary health care team and their skills could be better used to help patients with their long term medicines. The government is encouraging the setting up of medicines management services. Community pharmacists are well placed to help patients who have cardiovascular disease or who are at risk of this: they have an opportunity to identify at-risk patients, they can identify under treated patients at the point of dispensing, and they can provide education and advice on lifestyle and diet. They are also involved in smoking cessation services. Practice based pharmacists can improve patient care through medication review clinics.