An audit of prescribing for type 2 diabetes in primary care: optimising the role of the community pharmacist in the primary healthcare team

The Government has identified that the pharmacist should have greater involvement in the management of long-term conditions. The aim of this audit was to determine the adherence to National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidelines for type 2 diabetes patients and identify whether there is a potential role for pharmacists in their long-term management. All prescribing, in 194 patients, was within guidance for anti-hyperglycaemics. In all, 87.4% of patients prescribed an anti-hypertensive were prescribed an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor or equivalent. A large number of patients remain uncontrolled with respect to blood glucose or blood pressure. There are four potential reasons for this: patients require additional therapy; current therapy has not been optimised; current therapy is not working; or the patient is not fully adherent. Therefore, there may be a role for the pharmacist either in therapy optimisation or improving patient adherence to current therapy in order to support more patients reaching national targets.