Tuesday November 7th, 2006
Let me be honest. I’ve got a funky thing on my finger! I say funky, perhaps it’s more fungy. Around the nail of one of my fingers there’s a tiny bit of white flakey skin. Now I’m not writing this just to put you off your cornflakes. There’s an important point here. As I live in an urban area, getting an appointment at the doctors isn’t the easiest, and even when I do, frankly I always find it a wee bit embarrassing to go for something this minor.
So off I trundled to my local pharmacist, shoved my finger at them (in the nicest possible way) and asked if they could help. Two minutes and £2.75 later I was carrying my paint on anti-fungal sub-nail cream ready to fix the problem. With the burgeoning difficultly of using the NHS, pharmacists are a ready, useable, medically trained resource that are still vastly under-utlilised. I know many people do access them in the same way as I have today, but still a vast number clog up busy Doctors’ surgeries with issues the pharmacist can handle. Perhaps this needs better communicating.
PS. While I try to avoid being too overtly political in my articles, this is the reason that in the ‘Cheap Prescriptions and Medications Article’ I deliberately include the option of trying local chemists as well as supermarkets. After all keeping the local chemist going is a true benefit to a community, if for their expertise as much as for the product.
