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 effect on NHS winter planning for 2016-17 of changes in pharmacy funding in the period from December 2016 to April 2017.

Community pharmacy will continue to play an integral role in National Health Service planning for this winter.

Building on last year’s successful introduction of the national Influenza Adult Vaccination Service delivered through community pharmacies, pharmacists are again providing ‘flu vaccinations to eligible patients in this ‘flu season. Over 747,500 vaccinations have been carried out so far this year – more than for the whole of the 2015-16 season.

As part of our package of reform, we are helping community pharmacy to play a greater role. For example, we want community pharmacy to be seen as the first port of call for minor ailments, helping to reduce pressure on the rest of the system. This season’s Stay Well This Winter campaign points people to visit their pharmacist at the earliest signs of feeling unwell, and before their condition gets more serious, to prevent them ending up at their general practice or emergency care department.

In addition, a new community pharmacy pilot service, the NHS urgent medicines supply advanced service, is being rolled out by NHS England this winter starting from December 2016 and running until the end of March 2018. The pilot service will see NHS111 referring requests for urgent medicines to a community pharmacy, where appropriate, relieving pressure on urgent and emergency care services by shifting this demand from general practitioner out of hours providers. This is being funded by the new Pharmacy Integration Fund and will be evaluated to inform future commissioning decisions.