Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to utilise the network of community pharmacies to reduce workload in (a) hospital accident and emergency departments and (b) general practice.

Community pharmacies are already the first port of call for many and the Government wants this to continue, and indeed, to increase. One of the aims of this year’s Stay Well This Winter campaign (as carried by national newspapers and television) is to reduce pressure on general practitioners (GP) and accident and emergency departments, by directing people with early symptoms to visit their community pharmacy.

On 20 October 2016, the Government announced a package of reforms to ensure that the contribution of pharmacists and community pharmacies becomes integral to its plans for an integrated healthcare system as part of a truly seven day National Health Service. This includes the NHS Urgent Medicine Supply Advanced Service, whereby those who need urgent repeat medicines will be referred by NHS 111 directly to community pharmacies, thereby relieving pressure on GP out-of-hours services. In addition NHS England will encourage all clinical commissioning groups to commission local minor ailments services by April 2018, as part of an evidence-based, clinical and cost-effective approach to how community pharmacists and their teams contribute to urgent care in the NHS.

Public Health England published a menu of preventative interventions for the Sustainability and Transformation Plans in November 2016, which outlined evidence-based public health and preventative interventions that can help to improve the health of the population and reduce health and care services demand in the short to medium term.