Source · Select Committees · Health and Social Care Committee
Recommendation 12
12
Acknowledged
Paragraph: 83
Publish a long-term vision for expanding clinical services and roles within community pharmacies.
Recommendation
We recommend that the Government and NHS England publish a long-term vision for the further development of clinical services in community pharmacy settings within one year. This vision should: a) include consideration of examples of success within locally commissioned services, and how these could be offered across England b) build on the seven health conditions covered by Pharmacy First and the delivery of blood pressure and oral contraception services by pharmacists; Pharmacy 45 c) commit to expanding the role of pharmacists in the management of long-term conditions d) commit to expanding the role of pharmacists in carrying out medication reviews and supporting medicine adherence; and e) be supported by a plan setting out timeframes for the delivery of new services and commitments to the allocation of realistic levels of funding to any expansion of services.
Government Response Summary
The government outlines ongoing efforts to roll out digital capabilities for Pharmacy First and commits to ongoing monitoring and evaluation of the service via an NIHR study, but does not provide a comprehensive long-term vision for expanded clinical services with specific timeframes or funding commitments.
Paragraph Reference:
83
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
The full suite of digital capabilities for Pharmacy First is designed to make it easier for frontline staff to refer, consult, record outcomes, and report. NHS England policy is not to enable community pharmacies to have full read/write access to patient records. The priority is to ensure pharmacists have easy access to all the relevant heath information needed to support consultations, and to ensure that consultation outcomes can be sent back directly into practice workflows, for review as needed and seamless filing into the patient record. Progress on rolling out the enhanced digital capabilities is as follows: • Over 60% of general practice can send electronic Pharmacy First referrals, rising to 100% by end of March 2025 on current plans. 90% of community pharmacies, rising to 100% by the end of March 2025, can receive Pharmacy First referrals electronically from practices. • All community pharmacies can review additional heath information they need to support consultations by securely accessing the National Care Records System. NHS England is working with suppliers to surface key information directly in pharmacy clinical systems, saving time and improving workflows. • All community pharmacies can record consultation outcomes in their clinical systems. These are then automatically sent to: ○ NHS BSA to pay and reimburse pharmacists, monitor the service and feed into national reporting, including monitoring Antimicrobial resistance. ○ practices so patient records are updated, except for Blood Pressure Checks which will flow automatically shortly. Where practices have enabled it, these go straight into the GP clinical system workflow, otherwise a practice will receive them by email, alongside reports from other care settings. Work is ongoing with Integrated Care Boards to support practices to enable this capability. We recommend that the ongoing evaluation of Pharmacy First includes an assessment of the extent to which pharmacy and general practice digital systems are enabling the necessary data sharing to protect patient safety and ensure continuity of care. (Paragraph 113) Accept NHS England is committed to ongoing monitoring of all services, including Pharmacy First to understand ways we can improve access and support provided. For Pharmacy First, this includes oversight of medicine supply, claims systems and exchange of information between community pharmacy and general practice. The National Institute for Health and Care Research study that has been established to evaluate Pharmacy First has a line of inquiry to review the effectiveness of GP minor illness referrals to community pharmacy and we will use the outputs from that to inform any future service developments. Pharmacists must sign up to the national Data Sharing Agreement as part of the registration process for Pharmacy First, which ensures the necessary data sharing agreements are in place to protect patient safety.