Main responsibilities of a community pharmacist

The roles of community pharmacists are:

1. Dispensing of prescription medicines to the public.

2. Advice on using over-the-counter drug.

3. Reviewing prescriptions from doctors to ensure accuracy and suitability for the patient, including the dosage, ingredients required, and correctly and safely labelled.

4. Supervise the preparation of any medicines when not supplied ready-made by manufacturers.

5. Maintaining accurate pharmacy records and patient profiles.

6. Maintaining a register of controlled drugs for legal and stock control purposes.

7. Connection with doctors and other healthcare professionals to monitor, review and evaluate the effectiveness of medications.

8. Advising the public on medicines, side-effects of medicines and the treatment of minor ailments.

9. Providing advice on specialist health care issues such as vaccinations, blood pressure, smoking, cholesterol monitoring and diabetes screening.

10. Managing, supervising, educating and training pharmacy support staff.

11. Ordering and purchasing pharmaceutical supplies, medical supplies, or drugs

Maintaining stock and storing and handling it correctly.

12. Supporting the patients to make healthier choices, such as intake of more nutritious food, exercising more often or stopping smoking.