The Company Chemists' Association (CCA) has called for GPs to “refer more patients into Pharmacy First” as C+D analysis of data it released last week (April 30) shows a modest 11% rise in “eligible” consultations over the first two months of the service.
According to the CCA, a fifth of its members’ Pharmacy First consultations came from GP referrals and 6% of consultations were referred from the NHS 111 service over the period.
“Whilst these figures should rise with time, there is an urgent need to ensure these referral routes work optimally so all that patients who need to can access care for any of the seven conditions,” it said.
Read more:Healthwatch: ‘GP-first culture’ must change if Pharmacy First to work
Announcing the new figures, CCA chief executive Malcolm Harrison said that Pharmacy First “continues to show immense promise”.
But he added that GP surgeries needed “targeted support” to encourage them to make more referrals into the service.
Read more:Fifth of pharmacies warn May Pharmacy First threshold increase ‘unachievable’
Harrison also called on NHS England (NHSE) to provide more “high-quality and targeted engagement campaigns” to encourage the public to use the service more.
A CCA spokesperson told C+D that it had seen a “strong start” to Pharmacy First, with “a clear patient demand for the service”.
Eligible patients rise modestly
According to its data, the “3,000+” English pharmacies run by CCA members delivered 92,384 Pharmacy First consultations in the first two months of the service.
Of these appointments, 81,627 people were deemed to have met the gateway criteria and therefore be “eligible” for the service – representing 88% of the total.
Read more:Nearly a third of Scots use country’s Pharmacy First service, data reveals
Figures provided by the CCA show that members saw an average of 1,274 patients per day meeting eligibility criteria in the service’s first month - a period it defined as between January 31 and March 3.
Between March 4 and March 31 – defined as the service’s second month - this rose to 1,414 patients per day who met the gateway criteria, according to C+D’s calculations.
This indicates that between the first period and the second period, eligible appointments increased by 11%.
Public awareness “critical” to meeting threshold
Meanwhile, C+D calculated that CCA members had averaged at most 14 “eligible” consultations per pharmacy between Pharmacy First’s launch and March 3, assuming that membership is at least 3,000 pharmacies in England.
Between March 4 and March 31, the average across its members was, at most, 13 “eligible” consultations in the period.
Read more:Pharmacy First ‘league tables’ piling pressure on pharmacy staff, PDA warns
However, the CCA could not provide C+D with exact numbers of the pharmacies run by its members in England.
And a spokesperson said that it was unable to distinguish between online and in-person Pharmacy First consultations since it “anonymises and aggregates member data”.
Read more:‘Three clicks more than we want ’: GPs refuse to make Pharmacy First referrals
The CCA spokesperson told C+D that “NHSE promotional campaigns” were needed to raise “patient awareness”.
This will be “critical to hitting the threshold targets later in the year,” they said, adding that the CCA is also “keeping a close eye on the impact of seasonality”.
By August, a pharmacy will need to achieve at least 20 eligible Pharmacy First consultations per month to qualify for the £1,000 minimum threshold payment, rising to 30 in October.
A strong start?
Last month, data from independent multiples revealed that 20% of these pharmacies believed this month’s increase in Pharmacy First minimum thresholds will be “unachievable”, with 13% already unable to deliver enough consultations to meet current targets.
The data was collected by the Association of Independent Multiple Pharmacies (AIMp), which is now known as the Independent Pharmacies Association (IPA) following a rebrand last week.
Read more: ‘A lot of failures’: Less than 40% of Pharmacy First consultations secure fee
Earlier in April, the Pharmacists’ Defence Association (PDA) said that minimum activity thresholds for Pharmacy First consultations had led to “increasing pressure from...management” though comparison “league tables”.
And in March, C+D revealed that one pharmacy missed out on 10 consultation referrals in one day after GPs failed to formally refer patients to the Pharmacy First service.
An Avicenna poll revealed in the same month that pharmacies in the group were experiencing long Pharmacy First consultations, with less than 40% reaching the gateway criteria for payment.
