Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what will be the position of patients, previously served by a dispensing doctor practice, who live within 1.6 km of a pharmacy that closes, but still retains its licence, as a result of the closure of the Essential Small Pharmacies Scheme on 1 April 2015.

The ending of the essential small pharmacy local pharmaceutical services scheme on 31 March 2015 does not require such pharmacies to close. That is a decision for the individual contractor concerned. They may decide to return to the main National Health Service pharmaceutical list and come under the terms of the national community pharmacy contractual framework. Alternatively, they can decide to submit a proposal to NHS England to provide local pharmaceutical services. NHS England is working with individual providers of essential small pharmacies to ensure people in affected communities can continue to access appropriate NHS pharmaceutical services. However, if an essential small pharmacy – or any other type of pharmacy - did decide to close, it would no longer be able to provide NHS pharmaceutical services.

Patients can at any time request in writing that a doctor provides them with NHS pharmaceutical services. Applications should be made via the doctor to the appropriate NHS England office. To be eligible to receive dispensing services from a doctor, a patient must meet certain criteria, such as having serious difficulty obtaining services from a pharmacy or the patient lives in a designated rural area, more than 1.6 kilometres from the nearest pharmacy. These criteria are set out in Regulation 48 of the National Health Services (Pharmaceutical Services and Local Pharmaceutical Services) Regulations 2013 – SI 2013/349. A patient must also be on the doctor’s patient list, or the patient list of the practice at which the doctor provides or performs primary medical services, and the practice must be authorised by NHS England to provide NHS dispensing services.