It’s flu jab turf-wars season again. And if there was a fair bit of mud-slinging going on last year, this time round it sounds like it’s getting seriously dirty.
According to reports in C+D last month from pharmacists and their staff, GPs are ‘chastising patients’ who are considering getting a flu jab at their pharmacy.
A mild degree of GP disgruntlement might, at a stretch, be understandable. Particularly if, as in my area, our flu vaccination supply has been delayed, whereas the local pharmacies have had no such problems and so are already off to a flu-flier. Chastising patients, though, sounds a grumble too far.
There have even been suggestions that some GPs have threatened to de-list patients who choose to receive their flu jab from the pharmacy.
Far be it for me to pour cold water on a C+D story, but I genuinely find this hard to believe. After all, the only time I’m entitled to de-list patients these days is when they’ve been verbally or physically violent. After all, removal under any other circumstance could attract the attention of our regulator, the General Medical Council.
More credible is the story of family doctors using their websites to actively discourage patients from choosing pharmacy over GP practice this flu season.
And here’s where it gets murkier. Apparently, one explanation for any reluctance to report to the relevant bodies such flouting of the conventional flu-war rules might be that local pharmacies don’t want to rock the boat. Why? For fear of reprisals, such as script revenue from the offending practices drying up.
But before you get too holier than thou, consider this: isn’t failure to whistle-blow on unethical behaviour simply because it might hit your income, also unethical? Plus, I have my own anecdotal stories of pharmacists deliberately and unprofessionally removing flu reminders from GP repeat prescriptions to raise the odds of a pharmacy flu-jab.
And so on and so forth: two respected medical professions indulging in a slugfest aimed at undermining each other’s reputation. It’s all a bit unseemly, to be honest: neither side comes up smelling of roses.
The mud-slinging once again distracts from the real issue. Which is this: a sane and fair flu campaign overseen by a sane and fair Department of Health would ensure that GPs and pharmacists co-operate rather than compete. But, after all the name-calling, do we have the energy to make this point?