**Salute: Pharmacists to Provide New Health Services**
*By Marzio Bartoloni*
Simplifications arriving in the bill include the possibility for the pharmacist to provide new services such as vaccinations for over 12s, diagnostic tests, or the choice of a family doctor. Yes also to separate rooms for these services.
Not just drugs, but more and more health services: like all the vaccines provided for in the national vaccination plan for over 12s, in addition to those for flu and Covid already available, but also salivary and oropharyngeal diagnostic swabs, including tests to help choose the best antibiotic therapy for those affected by a respiratory disease. And again: telemedicine services – such as an electrocardiogram or blood pressure and cardiac Holter – as well as the possibility of choosing your family doctor or pediatrician without having to go to the local health authority to queue.
Here is the new push for the “pharmacy of services” which during the pandemic has already had an incredible acceleration, causing old pharmacies to change their skin – just think of the boom in anti-Covid swabs and vaccines. Now, with the new rules contained in the draft law on simplifications expected in the Council of Ministers, pharmacies will reach a real consecration. The draft bill provides that the owners of pharmacies can use premises separate from those where the pharmacy is located to provide health services.
The draft bill on simplifications provides in fact that to provide health services, “the owners of pharmacies can use premises separate from those where the pharmacy is located”, with the foresight, however, that in these same premises the collection of medical prescriptions is prohibited and any dispensing or sale of drugs or other products.
In short, for the pharmacist, it is a new leap forward in a journey that began slowly in 2009, with the possibility of new vaccinations symbolizing these transformations. The rules of the simplification bill could increase the number of pharmacies providing vaccinations, given that once they come into force, it will be possible to administer vaccines identified by the National Plan at pharmacies, by appropriately trained pharmacists.
These changes mark a new stage in the evolution of pharmacies as healthcare providers, offering a wider range of services to citizens. The future of healthcare in Italy is evolving, with pharmacists playing an increasingly important role in providing essential services to the community.
Marzio Bartoloni, deputy head of service.