Over 300,000 women have now benefited from regular contraception being available at NHS community pharmacies.
Thanks to staff across the country, this new initiative – part of the NHS’s expansion of primary care services – is enabling hundreds of thousands of women to be supplied oral contraceptives for the first time from their local pharmacy, and receive their next supply, without needing to contact their GP first.
With people leading increasingly busy lives, this service is a great example of how the NHS is making it easier to access essential services more quickly and conveniently.
The current consultation on creating a 10 Year Health Plan, which is due to be published in the spring, is about doing more of the same: to create a health service fit for the future and based more in the communities where people live.
Read more: Pharmacists urged to ‘submit ideas’ for 10-year plan to ‘fix NHS’
There are three central missions we need to work together to achieve:
1. moving care from hospitals to communities
2. making better use of technology in health and care
3. focusing on preventing sickness, not just treating it
People can access the 10 Year Health Plan portal to give their views on the NHS and health care and suggest to government where improvements can be made. This is an opportunity to share experiences and post ideas for improving health and care.
“Future pharmacy professionals will be able to offer more clinical assessment, clinical care, and patient management”
At a 10 Year Health Plan event with NHS and primary care staff in London last week, themes I picked up from participants included: the need to focus on addressing health inequalities; the importance of the analogue to digital shift as an enabler of other strategic ambitions; and that the NHS needs to become much better at the spread and adoption of best practice.
Pharmacy is a critical element in the shifts in care from hospitals to the community; treatment to prevention; and analogue to digital. The 77,000 registered pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in England are skilled professionals who operate in the heart of the NHS and their communities and are highly trusted by the public.
Read more: HSCC to do ‘all it can’ to stop NHS consultation being ‘great big piece of nonsense’
Pharmacy professionals are already integral to NHS care teams in hospitals, GP surgeries and primary care networks, and community pharmacies, and have proved they can contribute more in areas such as prevention of hospital admissions, tackling health inequalities and giving patients access to innovative new treatments.
Future pharmacy professionals will be able to offer more clinical assessment, clinical care, and patient management, supported by specialist inputs, alongside core pharmacy roles such as health advice, medicines optimisation and dispensing.
Investment already made in the reform of pharmacist education, training and workforce development – including integrated prescriber training within pharmacist foundation training from 2025 – means pharmacists are well placed to enhance and support capacity and flexibility as part of integrated neighbourhood teams and multi-professional hospital teams.
Similarly, pharmacy technician roles have been expanded to include use of Patient Group Directions.
Read more: Public want more services offered at pharmacies, YouGov reveals
I would like to thank community pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and pharmacy teams for your great work in delivering excellent clinical services and would urge you to take part in the consultation around the 10 Year Health Plan.
It’s essential that we’re part of this process, and our expertise and opinions are heard to help transform services.
David Webb is the chief pharmaceutical officer for England