In February 2016, PSNC published a set of service proposals that describe how pharmacy services could develop in the future within the context of Government drives for efficiency.

The proposals include the introduction of a care package, which would see repeat dispensing becoming a default option where medicines are needed on a long-term basis, patient registration at pharmacies, and pharmacies offering enhanced medicines optimisation services.

Pharmacies would also offer inhaler technique checks and advice routinely, undertake targeted prescription interventions, support for patients after discharge from hospital and offer minor ailments and emergency supply services.

The document was created as part of the discussions with the NHS following the open letter in which the Government announced a number of plans for community pharmacy including a £170m reduction in funding. The Government highlighted the need for efficiencies but also stated that it wanted to develop a clinically focussed community pharmacy service.

It has been PSNC’s ambition to develop a clinically focused community pharmacy service since 2004 when we agreed what was intended to be a dynamic framework for the development of services. Sadly this has not been taken up by the Government in subsequent years. The Government’s letter sent in December 2015 lacked detail on its proposals so PSNC’s service proposals are intended to fill that gap, showing how we can offer value and cost savings for the NHS as well as meeting the Government’s professed ambitions for community pharmacy services. The proposals have been presented to the Department of Health (DH) and the NHS but we have not received any feedback on them.

PSNC’s proposals offer a possible way to develop the pharmacy service in order to meet the NHS and Government’s stated aims for patient care, and PSNC will undertake further development work on them subject to the response they receive from DH and NHS England. The proposals are set out in three phases, in recognition of the need to allow the wider NHS and community pharmacy to adopt them in a controlled manner that also allows time for other enablers, such as IT, to be put in place.

We recognise that implementing these service development proposals would have substantial implications for DH’s planned restructuring of funding delivery and this would require detailed consideration.

Read a summary of PSNC’s service development proposals in the flipbook reader below (click to enlarge) or download the PDF here.

Counter proposals to DH’s plans

In April 2016, PSNC published a summary of the counter proposal it made to the Department of Health in response to the Government’s proposals for community pharmacy in 2016/17 and beyond. The counter proposal sets out how community pharmacy services, including an emergency supply of medicines service, could be used to generate the savings the NHS needs to make through pharmacy, without a cut in funding.

Further details of the counter proposal are outlined in PSNC Briefing 026/16: PSNC’s counter proposal to the Government’s plans for community pharmacy in 2016/17 and beyond.

The counter proposal was made to offer a short term alternative to the cuts proposed by the Government; PSNC still believes that the service development proposals it made in February (see section above) are the right way forward for community pharmacy, patients and the NHS, and we are working towards those in the medium to long term.