In October 2013 PSNC hosted a seminar bringing together NHS commissioners, including representatives from NHS England, Public Health England and the National Association of Primary Care, MPs and Parliamentarians, charities and other stakeholders to discuss how PSNC’s vision for the future of community pharmacy services might best be realised.

The seminar formed part of the committee’s ongoing work to develop the community pharmacy service and followed the publication of PSNC’s vision narrative in the summer of 2013 which described how pharmacies could deliver more across four key domains:

1. Optimising the use of medicines;
2. Supporting people to self-care;
3. Supporting people to live healthier lives; and
4. Supporting people to live independently

The seminar attendees focused on each of these four areas, debating how obstacles to the development of services could be overcome and what the next actions for community pharmacy should be.

PSNC has collated the ideas and conclusions and more details can be read in this summary of the event:

PSNC Seminar Report – October 13

You can also watch a PSNC video highlighting key findings from the event and including an interview with Dr Charles Alessi, a GP and Chair of the National Association of Primary Care, in which he talks about the future role he sees for community pharmacy. Click on the play button below to view the video.

Pharmacy Minister Earl Howe: Comments from the PSNC Seminar

Pharmacy Minister Earl Howe also addressed the seminar, backing PSNC’s Vision and saying he remained keen for community pharmacy to step up to the mark and assume a greater role in providing healthcare and public health.

The minister praised pharmacy’s moves to take control of its own destiny and said the four domains across which PSNC is working to develop the community pharmacy service were “everything really that a modern pharmacy is all about”.

Looking to the future, Earl Howe said he believed pharmacies could help reduce burdens on GPs and hospitals by providing high quality care to people close to their homes. He added that there was some great work being done in pharmacies to encourage people to make changes to their lifestyles and highlighted pharmacy’s role in flu vaccination, identifying people with dementia and helping people to stop smoking..

“There is much of promise in [PSNC’s] vision and I am encouraged by what I have seen so far. But, as ever, the challenge will be to deliver on this by identifying innovation, trying out new services, collaborating with others, evaluating the outcomes and, where successful, influencing commissioning for the benefit of patients and the public. That, to me, will make a reality of the vision,” he concluded.

PSNC Comment on the Seminar

“We all know how much community pharmacy has changed over the past few years and that pharmacies now do so much more for their patients. PSNC’s vision narrative sets out clearly our ideas about how pharmacy could take that development even further and we have received very positive feedback on it.

The challenge now of course is to make that vision a reality and that is where this event came in – we wanted to look outside pharmacy and gather views from people across the whole NHS about what the challenges might be and how we can best overcome them.

Of course we’ll be listening to the responses we received and focusing on some of the action points identified as we continue to work to develop the community pharmacy service.”

Alastair Buxton, Head of NHS Services, PSNC

More Information

PSNC’s Vision Narrative – full version (PDF)