A Boost in Pharmacy Services? There’s Only One Prescription We Need – Change!

Earlier this week, Rishi Sunak charged into his home city Southampton to excitedly announce a much needed boost of funding in primary care. Before running for the door to escape any form of questioning even from the local newspaper Daily Echo, PM Sunak announced that pharmacists will be able to prescribe “prescription only medication” via PGDs (patient group direction), just like the winter flu jab is. So far so good, right?

On paper, that appears to be the case, but unfortunately as somebody with an immense amount of experience in primary care, I have to ask, does Mr Sunak not already hear the cries of 10s of thousands of pharmacists/pharmacy owners who are struggling to keep the lights on despite dispensing more prescriptions than ever?

Lloyd’s Pharmacy putting most of their estate up for sale is not some coincidence.It’s because being a predominantly dispensing pharmacy is no longer profitable but it’s what the public expects a pharmacy to do before anything else. Providing these new services requires far more funding because it will require more staff. A single pharmacist will not be able to check hundreds of prescriptions, give out general advice, contact patients to consult on new medication, signpost patients, examine discharge summaries, plus deliver this additional service adequately in a single day.

More funding is most needed in items dispensed. The fee currently at 127p per item has been flatlined since at least 2015. After a year of 10% inflation, years of other cuts to pharmacies such as closing services that were easier to obtain participants such as medicine use reviews, no funding to support patient deliveries, dispensing into NOMADs for impaired patients – services patients still want but many pharmacies can no longer provide unless they’re willing to swallow a loss how is the government going to give us confidence that we will have the necessary support to continue going? I urge more funding in areas that pharmacies are currently struggling in. [SJ1] 

Labour’s Wes Streeting has been very vocal since taking on the role of Shadow Health Secretary about how he want pharmacies to adapt and become more than just high street beacons to dispense medication from prescriptions and sell shampoo. This recent initiative seems to have taken some ideas from that, as Labour as a whole wants pharmacies to be more fluid in their role of primary care. Labour have said that “fixing the front door to the NHS” is one of their highest priorities, showing that at least there is a political party that understands the importance of pharmacies still being on the high street. Labour has a track record of acknowledging the need of having a healthcare professional such as a pharmacist at close reach for patients, previously stating that primary care needs an overall overhaul to improve the healthcare experience for everybody from professionals to patients. We need the kind of ambition that the Conservatives are completely void of. Wes Streeting has already made his own remarks on the recent changes stating that there’s a lot more that’s needed.  

We will eagerly await the details of this new scheme, that needs to come into place rather quick if they want to prove to the electorate that this is a good idea. I urge the public to demand more from their government and how they will stop more pharmacies closing. Pharmacies becoming online only will be incredibly damaging to the rest of the NHS, and of course – the patients.

 [SJ1]Did the government fund these in the past or did pharmacies absorb the costs?

 

Is the £645M pledge enough to bring in the proposed changes. Does it address the lost services?

Scott Saffin