It’s the season for sore throats — including the infuriating ones that just won’t vanish.
But how can you tell if your lingering painful chest is simply a cold that needs nothing but time to clear up, or a nasty infection that warrants antibiotics?
Now, you no longer have to wait for an appointment at your impenetrable GP surgery to find out.
NHS England’s new Pharmacy First service allows your local pharmacists to prescribe medication for a handful of easy-to-treat conditions, including infected bites, shingles, urinary tract infections and some sore throats.
Now, MailOnline can reveal the simple test that’s used by pharmacists to determine if your painful throat is bad enough for prescribed medication.
The test — developed by NHS England — gives patients a score out of five depending on the presence of five symptoms, and how severe they are.
Symptoms include a fever measuring over 38°C, pus on the tonsils, inflamed tonsils and no cough. Patients score an extra point if they are visiting the pharmacist within three days of the symptoms starting.
This is because those with symptoms that have existed for a while may have an underlying problem that requires a specialist referral.
NHS England’s Pharmacy First Patient Group Directive gives pharmacists instructions for prescribing medication to patients in order to free up GP space.
If patients score above four, pharmacists will then ask how severe the pain is — if mild, you’re told to take paracetamol. But if severe, they can prescribe a five day course of the common antibiotic, penicillin — providing the patient is not allergic.
The guidance also states that, before even considering treatment for a chest or throat infection, pharmacists should consider red flag symptoms for other, more serious conditions.
These include scarlet fever, glandular fever, an abscess behind the tonsil known as quinsy and some cancers.
The test is only used for adults and children aged over five, with pregnant women aged below 16 excluded.
Those who are immunosuppressed and considered to be ‘high risk’ of deteriorating health will not be eligible for the test, and instead referred on for specialist treatment.
The Pharmacy First scheme was launched by the government and NHS England at the end of January in a bid to ease pressure on GP services.
Recent data from a survey of people’s experience of the NHS over one month revealed that fewer than half of patients in England were able to see their GP face-to-face.
Only a third of patients surveyed could see GPs the same day they sought help, while only a fifth said a telephone or online appointment sufficed for addressing their health concerns.
It comes after more than 98 per cent of family doctors in England backed the proposed British Medical Association (BMA) industrial action to put a 25 appointment per day cap per family doctor.
Pharmacists can now prescribe medication for a limited range of common ailments including infected bites, shingles, urinary tract infections and some sore throats.
Helen Morgan MP and Liberal Democrat Health and Social Care spokesperson argued that the country’s primary care services are ‘at breaking point’.
‘Patients are left completely without options, instead letting their issues get worse when they are unable to get the care they need,’ she said.
Meanwhile, high street pharmacies are struggling with dwindling staff members and financial hardship, forcing many to close, a new report suggests.
Seven in 10 pharmacy owners also regularly report staff shortages, with a tenth forced to close temporarily, according to the survey by industry body Community Pharmacy England (CPE).
The report comes after it was revealed number of pharmacies in England is now at the lowest level in almost 20 years, with an average of seven of these vital services closing every week.
More than 1,500 have shut their doors since 2015, leaving just 10,054 open, the National Pharmacy Association warned last month.
At this rate, numbers could fall below 10,000 for the first time since 2005, when there were 9,872.
Boots has closed branches en masse in recent months, while LloydsPharmacy has shut its doors completely.
