Asked by: Nigel Adams (Conservative - Selby and Ainsty)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if his Department will bring forward proposals for a community pharmacy not-dispensed scheme.
Answered by David Mowat
The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) put forward a range of service development and counter proposals during the course of the consultation with them on community pharmacy in 2016/17 and beyond. These proposals were all given full consideration by the Department. The final package contained two of the PSNC’s counter proposals – the proposal to introduce a quality payment, and the proposal for an urgent supply of medicines scheme.
The independent review being conducted by Richard Murray, of the King’s Fund, will consider what clinical services should be provided by community pharmacy in the future, and how they should be commissioned.
The Pharmacy Integration Fund will be used to commission and evaluate activities that bring about clinical pharmacy integration within the National Health Service demonstrating improvements in health outcomes for patients and the public in primary care and in the community.
Asked by: Nigel Adams (Conservative - Selby and Ainsty)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if his Department will bring forward proposals for a community pharmacy generic substitution service.
Answered by David Mowat
The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) put forward a range of service development and counter proposals during the course of the consultation with them on community pharmacy in 2016/17 and beyond. These proposals were all given full consideration by the Department. The final package contained two of the PSNC’s counter proposals – the proposal to introduce a quality payment, and the proposal for an urgent supply of medicines scheme.
The independent review being conducted by Richard Murray, of the King’s Fund, will consider what clinical services should be provided by community pharmacy in the future, and how they should be commissioned.
The Pharmacy Integration Fund will be used to commission and evaluate activities that bring about clinical pharmacy integration within the National Health Service demonstrating improvements in health outcomes for patients and the public in primary care and in the community.
Asked by: Nigel Adams (Conservative - Selby and Ainsty)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if his Department will bring forward proposals for a community pharmacy service to help reduce waste in care homes.
Answered by David Mowat
The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) put forward a range of service development and counter proposals during the course of the consultation with them on community pharmacy in 2016/17 and beyond. These proposals were all given full consideration by the Department. The final package contained two of the PSNC’s counter proposals – the proposal to introduce a quality payment, and the proposal for an urgent supply of medicines scheme.
The independent review being conducted by Richard Murray, of the King’s Fund, will consider what clinical services should be provided by community pharmacy in the future, and how they should be commissioned.
The Pharmacy Integration Fund will be used to commission and evaluate activities that bring about clinical pharmacy integration within the National Health Service demonstrating improvements in health outcomes for patients and the public in primary care and in the community.
Asked by: Nigel Adams (Conservative - Selby and Ainsty)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if his Department will bring forward a community pharmacy (a) campaign and (b) audit on unwanted medicines.
Answered by David Mowat
The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) put forward a range of service development and counter proposals during the course of the consultation with them on community pharmacy in 2016/17 and beyond. These proposals were all given full consideration by the Department. The final package contained two of the PSNC’s counter proposals – the proposal to introduce a quality payment, and the proposal for an urgent supply of medicines scheme.
The independent review being conducted by Richard Murray, of the King’s Fund, will consider what clinical services should be provided by community pharmacy in the future, and how they should be commissioned.
The Pharmacy Integration Fund will be used to commission and evaluate activities that bring about clinical pharmacy integration within the National Health Service demonstrating improvements in health outcomes for patients and the public in primary care and in the community.
Asked by: Nigel Adams (Conservative - Selby and Ainsty)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the potential for community pharmacies to (a) deliver early identification of medical complaints and ongoing patient monitoring and (b) help reduce hospital admission rates.
Answered by David Mowat
We want a clinically focussed community pharmacy service that is better integrated with primary care and public health in line with the Five Year Forward View. This will help relieve the pressure on general practitioners and accident and emergency, ensure better use of medicines and better patient outcomes, and contribute to delivering seven-day health and care services.
The Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for England, Dr Keith Ridge has commissioned an independent review of community pharmacy clinical services. The review is being led by Richard Murray, Director of Policy at The King’s Fund. The final recommendations will be considered as part of the development of clinical and cost effective patient care by pharmacists and their teams.
NHS England is also setting up a Pharmacy Integration Fund to support the development of clinical pharmacy practice in a wider range of primary care settings, resulting in a more integrated and effective National Health Service primary care patient pathway.
Asked by: Nigel Adams (Conservative - Selby and Ainsty)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions he has had with CCGs to work with community pharmacies to develop a role in reducing hospital admissions, early identification or intervention services and patient ongoing monitoring services.
Answered by David Mowat
NHS England has advised that all clinical commissioning groups are included in a sustainability and transformation plan (STP) footprint within which, local health and care organisations are working together to develop STPs which will help drive genuine and sustainable transformation in patient experience and health outcomes in the longer-term.
NHS England’s guidance to STPs highlights the importance of an integrated approach to primary care, including community pharmacy, in the delivery of transformed health services at the local level.
In addition, we are currently recruiting a further 1,500 qualified pharmacists to work within general practices by 2020.
Asked by: Nigel Adams (Conservative - Selby and Ainsty)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what (a) demographic factors, (b) deprivation level factors and (c) factors of difference in distance from target market forces he took into account when determining the funding allocated for (i) Vale of York CCG, (ii) NHS West Cheshire, (iii) NHS North East Essex, (iv) NHS South Warwickshire, (v) NHS Canterbury and Coastal, (vi) NHS Lincolnshire West and (vii) NHE East Riding of Yorkshire.
Answered by Alistair Burt
Responsibility for clinical commissioning group (CCG) allocations rests with NHS England and the funding allocated to all CCGs is based on the CCG allocations formula. This is based on advice provided by the Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation (ACRA). ACRA is an independent committee and reports jointly to the Secretary of State for Health (in regard to public health allocations) and NHS England in regard to CCG and primary care allocations. The formula was initially approved by NHS England in 2013 and they have now reviewed and updated the formula for 2016-17 onwards.
The formula is based on the size of the population of each CCG and adjustments, or weights, per head for relative need for health care services and unavoidable costs between CCGs. The weights per head are based on the following:
― need due to age (typically, the more elderly the population, the higher the need per head, all else being equal);
― additional need over and above that due to age (this includes measures of health status and a number of proxies for health status such as deprivation);
― an adjustment for unmet need and health inequalities;
― unavoidable higher costs of delivering health care due to location alone, known as the Market Forces Factor (this reflects that staff, land and building costs are higher in for example London than other parts of the country); and
― an adjustment for the higher costs of providing emergency ambulance services in sparsely populated areas, and an adjustment for the higher costs of unavoidably small hospitals with 24 hour accident and emergency services in remote areas.
The final step of the allocations process is to determine how quickly to move CCGs from their current allocation to the target allocation determined by the formula. The objective is to reduce the ‘distance from target’ so that areas furthest below their target allocation receive the biggest increases. This needs to balance against the need to ensure service stability for those areas above target, and that increases are not so large that resources are not used efficiently. The approach also takes account of the distance from target in each area for primary care and specialised services so that the overall funding position for the area is taken into account.
NHS England recently published a technical guide to allocations which sets out all the individual factors used in determining the allocation levels. The guide is available here:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/2016/04/allocations-tech-guide-16-17/#