At the end of last week, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) announced that due to ongoing COVID-19 pressures across all sectors, the requirement to publish renewed Pharmaceutical Needs Assessments (PNAs) will be suspended until October 2022 – an extra six months. The National Health Service (Pharmaceutical and Local Pharmaceutical Services) Regulations 2013 will be updated to reflect this change in due course.

The announcement followed requests by PSNC and Local Authorities and is welcomed by PSNC.

In the meantime, before a renewed PNA is published, in most cases Local Health and Wellbeing Boards (HWBs) retain the ability to issue supplementary statements to respond to changes in the availability of pharmaceutical services, where those changes are relevant to the granting of applications.

DHSC has also announced that updated guidance on PNAs will be published this summer, which should assist HWBs and LPCs with the process of renewing PNAs.