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The Company Chemists’ Association (CCA) has claimed its members have provided more than one million Pharmacy First consultations in England since the service launched in January last year – increasing access to care for people in the most deprived parts of the country.

The trade body for the big pharmacy chains also said its member pharmacies rolled out consultations to about 9,000 patients during the Easter weekend and insisted consultation volumes rose by 10 per cent in the week before Christmas last year.

CCA: Three million patients have used Pharmacy First across the sector

The CCA said about three million patients have visited their local pharmacy for advice or treatment for the seven conditions under Pharmacy First across the pharmacy sector.

The CCA’s statistics, based on data it collected from 3,000 pharmacies between Pharmacy First’s launch on January 31, 2024 and May 25 this year, showed 28 per cent of consultations provided by its members were in the most deprived communities.

The data comes after the health minister Stephen Kinnock told parliament on June 17 that “take-up of Pharmacy First” amongst patients was “not what we would like it to be”.

Kinnock said the Government was looking at ways to increase awareness of the service “and free up pharmacists to be able to operate at the top of their licence”.

The CCA, however, painted a different picture, insisting consultation volumes continued to grow at an average rate of six per cent a month and suggesting one in three consultations takes place outside of working hours.

“Demand for consultations on Sundays is double the average of that during the week,” the CCA said. Its chief executive Malcolm Harrison insisted “patient demand for pharmacy-led care continues to grow and pharmacies are ready to meet it”.

“CCA members continue to deliver high quality Pharmacy First consultations in ever increasing volumes,” he said. “The sector now consistently provides over 200,000 consultations a month. However, the pharmacy network has the potential to deliver so much more.”

He again urged the Government to expand the service to include more conditions and treatments and insisted Pharmacy First “must become an independent prescribing-led service”.

“With ambitious commissioning from the Government, up to 40 million consultations could be safely transferred from general practice to community pharmacies every year,” he said.

NPA: 10-year NHS plan is ‘golden opportunity’ to expand pharmacies’ roles

The National Pharmacy Association’s chief executive Henry Gregg insisted “good progress has been made since the launch of Pharmacy First in England last year”.

However, he said “hurdles still remain”, including the engagement of GPs despite independent pharmacies’ willingness to embrace the service. Gregg said the Government’s upcoming 10-year NHS plan is “a golden opportunity to seize the initiative and expand the role of community pharmacies”.

“The experience from Scotland shows there is even more potential to treat more patients for a wide variety of conditions that would otherwise see you visiting other more costly parts of the NHS,” he said.

“Pharmacies act as the front door to the NHS and with the right funding and support can provide even more services to their patients.”