PSNC’s Pharmacy 5 Point Forward Plan sets out five key services that we believe the NHS could and should commission quickly via the Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (CPCF). These services would help provide better care for patients as well as reducing pressure on GPs and urgent care services.

The plan follows the recent funding settlement, which included agreement on a national flu vaccination service, discussions about a possible minor ailments advice service and a commitment to
work together on business cases for future services.

The commitment to the community pharmacy flu vaccination service shows that the NHS is starting to see the value pharmacy offers; but progress is too slow and we believe they must speed up.

This plan builds on our previous work but will provide a new focus, and it also sets out clearly the services we would like to discuss with the NHS. We want to state very clearly and loudly how community pharmacy can step up its contribution to primary care, in a short timescale. Our objective is principally to get ministers and NHS England to address these in our next round of negotiations, and to focus on the opportunities on offer.

The five points are all in PSNC’s Vision, but following the disappointment with the minor ailments advice service we decided we needed to articulate very clearly and specifically what community pharmacy service expansion can do and the value it brings to patients and the NHS.

We will be promoting the plan to national stakeholders to try to influence the next commissioning mandate, which is the instruction NHS England gives to NHS Employers to guide them on what can be included in their negotiations with PSNC. The plan sets out a number of services that pharmacies can provide and which we would like included in the mandate.

We have also asked LPCs to support this work by using the flyer in any discussions with local NHS England teams and Local Professional Networks (LPNs). It may also be appropriate to show to other commissioners as further evidence of what community pharmacy can offer.

Some of the themes in the plan will be familiar to those in pharmacy – they build on PSNC’s vision and the evidence that has accumulated since its publication in 2013. Many of the services have been tested locally so we know that they will improve care for patients as well as reducing pressure on GPs and other providers; it is time to scale these local successes up and offer the services nationally. The services outlined in the plan are in line with PSNC’s Vision and recent PSNC subcommittee discussions on future contract development priorities.

We hope the plan will be of interest to pharmacists and to commissioners to show them what they could gain from better use of community pharmacy.

The popularity of existing community pharmacy services shows how open the public are to receiving a range of services and advice from pharmacies. GPs continue to warn that their workload is unsustainable and we know that for many conditions community pharmacy teams can offer a safe, effective and more easily accessible alternative to a GP consultation. We also know that pharmacy is ready, willing and able to deliver many more services provided we are fairly remunerated for doing so.

The ideas within the plan set out how the NHS can take advantage of this and we hope it will be of interest to all those involved in delivering, commissioning or receiving primary healthcare.

Read our full references and evidence supporting the five points here.