Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how his Department intends to ensure that (a) no community in England will be left without a pharmacy and (b) that access to pharmacies will improve following funding changes to pharmacies.

The Pharmacy Access Scheme will protect patient access in areas where there are fewer pharmacies with higher health needs, so that no area will be left without access to National Health Service community pharmaceutical services. Qualifying pharmacies will receive an additional payment, meaning those pharmacies will be protected from the full effect of the reduction in funding from December 2016, compared to others.

A quality scheme will be introduced so that, for the first time, we will be paying pharmacies for the quality of service they are providing to improve services to patients and public.

The Pharmacy Integration Fund will support community pharmacy as it develops new clinical pharmacy services, working practices and digital platforms to meet the public’s expectations for a modern NHS community pharmacy service. The aim of the Fund is to support the development of clinical pharmacy practice in a wider range of primary care settings, resulting in more integrated and effective NHS primary care for patients.