Community Pharmacies

Debate between Liz McInnes and Jo Churchill

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Jo Churchill]

As I said, there is no one size that fits all. As the hon. Lady articulated in her speech, the difficulty is that we are not looking at a system where businesses are run on the same scale model. At any one point, there are single pharmacists. She stated that the pharmacy she visited was part of a seven-strong business. Then there are the multiples. We need to look at what is the best scheme. However, I would argue that independents have a much higher footfall from their local population, because they are more trusted than many of the multiple pharmacies due to the continuity that comes from their having been in their communities for longer. There are opportunities there for independents.

We know we will need to design new ways of working to make a success of this, and we will need patients to be confident in how they use the services. The enhanced role for community pharmacy will support patients in getting access to help where required and in using the NHS in the best possible way. When people are suffering from minor conditions such as earaches or sore throats and need health advice, we want them to think “Pharmacy First”.

We want to build on that, with other parts of the NHS proactively signposting to local pharmacists. We want everyone to recognise the high-level skills held by pharmacists and to get people to understand that we need them as a first-line service to go to. That will grow trust in the system and spread the load. We will, of course, need to reform the way we work to free up pharmacists’ time so that they are able to deliver these new services.

[Liz McInnes]

I am sorry to interrupt, but the Minister has not referred to delivery times yet, and we have only two and a half minutes to go. Will she mention what she is going to do about those?

[Jo Churchill]

I thank the hon. Lady, but I would like to push through and to come on to the supply of medicines, which the hon. Member for Halifax spent much of her speech discussing.

We must recognise that we need to work in partnership and that this is not only about treating ill health. One of the first services to come online under the new arrangements will be the community pharmacist consultation service, which will start on 29 October. It will establish the first ever national triage system, which will look at community pharmacies referring patients into pharmacy directly from NHS 111 for minor illnesses, wellbeing support and self-care advice, as well as urgent problems. It is important that everybody involved makes this work a success, because we want this to be a two-way process. Over the next five years, we want to include referrals from GPs, urgent treatment centres and NHS Online, but we want to do that based on evidence, sensibly and in collaboration with those in the sector. Registration opened only last month, and more than 2,000 pharmacies have been signed up.

Additionally, by 2020, being a level 1 healthy living pharmacy is expected to be an essential requirement, so that pharmacies can give advice. Integration across primary care is hugely important; the new contractual framework is about not moving minor illness, but about using the whole system better. Community pharmacies are a vital part of the picture if we want to think “Pharmacy First”.

Coming on to the question of medicine supply and shortages, I appreciate the issues that the hon. Member for Halifax mentioned, but, as recognised in last week’s National Audit Office report, we have done an enormous amount in collaboration with pharmaceutical and medical device companies. There are always ongoing shortages, but the Department works all the time to ensure that they are mitigated and that a proper supply of medicine can be got to people. With the issues of Brexit, we know that that is doubly important, and that is what the Department has been doubling down on.