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A report commissioned by Community Pharmacy England (CPE) has challenged the Government, commissioners and system leaders to support pharmacies to play an integral role in its neighbourhood health service over the next 10 years.

‘A Prescription for Success’, published yesterday and produced by Helen Buckingham, who chairs National Voices, a coalition of health and social care charities in England, made five recommendations to “make community pharmacies a cornerstone of neighbourhood health”.

The report said community pharmacy must be involved in service transformation locally and nationally, its IT and physical estates are included in local and national plans and there is strong capacity for the commissioning of pharmacy services within integrated care boards and the Department of Health and Social Care post-NHS England’s abolition.

The report also called for community pharmacy’s workforce to be included in the Government’s 10-year NHS plan which was published in the summer and reform of the community pharmacy contract to ensure pharmacy services are underpinned by a “sustainable funding and operational model”.

Ten-year plan ‘is silent on the pharmacy contract’

The report said that last recommendation, which it described as the “most fundamental”, was driven by huge pressures on pharmacies such as unreimbursed medicine costs, rising wages and inflationary costs and the impact of drugs shortages, as well as other increasing overheads.

It said although the 10-year plan sets out plans to develop new contractual arrangements for GPs and dentists, “it is silent on the pharmacy contract”. There is still no word on when talks between the Government and Community Pharmacy England on 2026-27 pharmacy funding will begin.

Providing a timely reminder of recommendations made in CPE’s Vision for Community Pharmacy in 2023, the report said single neighbourhood provider and multi-neighbourhood provider contracts referenced in the 10-year plan should be aligned with services set out in the 2026-27 pharmacy contract to “support collaboration across the wider health and care system”.

The report also warned “clear guidance and oversight on conflicts of interest, particularly for the prescribing and dispensing roles and commercial interests” was needed, for example when “evidence goes against the provision of medication or other pharmacy items”.

ICBs should work closely with community pharmacy

On workforce, the report said the 10-year plan only made reference to medicine and nursing and insisted pharmacy must be integrated into the Government’s national workforce strategy which is designed to ensure there is enough skilled staff to deliver the 10-year plan.

Referring to CPE’s 2023 vision once again, the report said ICB’s workforce strategies must “explicitly” include community pharmacy while pharmacists across all sectors must have “appropriate professional leadership”.

The report said ICBs should work closely with community pharmacy to ensure commissioned services support career pathways whose “recruitment and retention will likely be linked to the deployment and support of independent prescribing”.

The report noted that as more pharmacists become independent prescribers, their role in the management of long-term conditions, complex medication regimens and treatment of obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol will increase.

“Community pharmacy will also have a bigger role in prevention by expanding their role in vaccine delivery and in screening for risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes,” it said.

The report said community pharmacy’s existing workforce should be upskilled and given protected learning time and also urged the National Institute for Health and Care Research and other funding bodies to support the sector to participate in and lead on developing research and innovation skills.

National approach to community pharmacy IT

On pharmacy service commissioning capacity, the report said integrated health organisations and NHS place partnerships within integrated care systems, which bring together NHS, local government and other organisations to deliver health and care services, should have a “well developed understanding of the services which community pharmacies offer and business models and contractual arrangements within which they operate”.

In terms of IT, the report warned there was more to do to ensure pharmacies “have the appropriate hardware and software to enable data to be shared in a timely manner either for immediate patient care or for service planning and performance monitoring”.

It called for a “national approach” to community pharmacy IT and a “national funding stream” to ensure the former is delivered.

Radical redesign of traditional model of outpatient care

However, insisting pharmacies’ physical premises needed investment, the report also said: “In addition to the space required to dispense prescription medicines and sell over-the-counter products, community pharmacies require appropriate and confidential space for individual patient consultations.”

Community pharmacy, the report insisted, can help redesign services, citing the 10-year plan’s ambition for “a radical redesign of the traditional model of outpatient care”.

“There is potential for community pharmacy to contribute to this and to take on new roles in relation to secondary care prescribing,” the report said. “Similarly, pharmacies have much to offer the proposed women’s health hubs.”

The hubs are part of the former Conservative Government's strategy to boost women's health services in England, which was boosted by £25 million in funding in 2023.