“By no later than October 1, 2025, practices will be…required to ensure the functionality in GP Connect is enabled,” allowing “community pharmacy registered professionals to send consultation summaries into the GP practice workflow” NHSE last week (February 28) announced.
In April, C+D exclusively revealed that pharmacists were finally able to update GP records with Pharmacy First consultation data after delays to the functionality since the common conditions service launched in January meant they had to use “cumbersome alternatives”.
But in June, practices turned off GP Connect functionality en masse after the British Medical Association (BMA) warned that the update record function “could potentially further enable workload and subtle responsibility transfer from an external provider directly to the GP in the future”.
Read more: GPs switch off update patient record function in new Pharmacy First IT twist
At the time, Community Pharmacy England (CPE) director of NHS services Alastair Buxton deemed the move “counterintuitive”.
But now the GP contract has stressed that practices are required to turn GP Connect back on, “which will reduce administrative burden for general practice teams”, NHSE said.
“Time to focus on pharmacy”
The orders have come as part of a 2025/26 contract deal that lays out plans for an “overall increase in investment of £889 million across the core practice contract”.
The “7.2% cash growth on the contract funding envelope” is “the biggest increase in investment into general practice in over a decade with general practice contract funding growing at a faster rate than NHS funding as a whole”, it added.
Read more: BREAKING: Pharmacists able to update GP records from today
On Friday, Company Chemists’ Association (CCA) Chief Executive Malcolm Harrison said he was “pleased that the government’s actions reflect their stated ambition to move care from hospital to community”.
“Now, it is time to focus on the community pharmacy contract,” he added.
“We are hopeful that this positive intent will also be reflected in the contract for pharmacies that is currently being negotiated,” he said.
Read more: Pharmacy First: Government ‘acting on’ GP refusal to engage
Harrison added that enabling GP to connect “will allow for more integration between GPs and community pharmacy”.
“This is essential to providing patients with the best possible care and bringing together all parts of primary care,” he said.
“Unwilling”
Meanwhile in January, health minister Baroness Merron said that the government was “aware” of claims that some GPs are “unwilling” to refer patients to community pharmacies.
“NHSE is working closely with integrated care boards (ICBs), GPs and the community pharmacy sector to improve referrals,” she added.
Read more: MP: GPs need ‘financial incentive’ to engage with Pharmacy First
That month, a London integrated care board (ICB) told C+D that it was “working to understand” a national dip in Pharmacy First referrals from GPs in the summer.
The comment came as an MP called for “financial incentives” to be introduced to encourage GPs to “work with pharmacies” and engage with the Pharmacy First service.
He went on to claim that “there are disincentives for GPs to embrace” the new service.
