Pharmacy First has been “enormously successful” after an “estimated 1.7 million consultations as of the end of November”, according to the Company Chemists’ Association (CCA) head of policy.
Dr Nick Thayer said this was the “most successful start to community pharmacy services we’ve ever seen” and based on current consultation projections, “we should see 2.5 million by March 2025, the end of the financial year”.
He was speaking about the increasing role of pharmacists in prescribing and reducing pressures in primary care at the Westminster Health Forum’s next steps for general practice and primary care in England conference today (December 17).
Read more: CPE targets nurseries and schools with Pharmacy First checklist
Thayer explained “we’re in chapter one, we’ve got many major chapters to go” as it’s “building on that wider journey community pharmacy going through, which is taking the skills of pharmacists and using them for something more than the safe supply of medicines”.
He said that the service has had “really good growth” in its first year, and this will continue as recent data shows “quite a clear upward trend”.
He also signposted to data looking at how consultations vary across the country, with London areas having lower numbers which Thayer said “doesn’t track with many other parts of healthcare, so it’s quite an interesting trend that we’re still trying to work out”.
Read more: ‘High volumes’: Fifth pharmacy suspended from Pharmacy First
North Central London Integrated Care Board (ICB) had around 1,075 consultations per 100,000 people in its population, while the Black Country ICB had 2,539 and generally northern parts of England had more consultations per 100,000 people.
Thayer said an expansion of Pharmacy First can materialise through developing gateway thresholds and access, broadening inclusion criteria, adding additional conditions to the seven clinical pathways, and adopting a walk-in service for minor illnesses.
“Over the moon” but not “exponential”
He also shared predictions of how many appointments different services could achieve, including:
- Eye infections – up to 3m appointments
- Migraines – up to 2.5m appointments
- Acne vulgaris – up to 3.5m appointments
- Chest infection in adults – up to 2.5m appointments
- Lower back pain – up to 5.5m appointments
- Dental pain – over 0.5m appointments
In response to questions from the conference’s delegates, Thayer agreed that easy to use IT solutions removed a big barrier for Pharmacy First referrals from general practice as those with higher referral rates are where “integrated solutions have been commissioned”.
Read more: NHSE relaunches Pharmacy First marketing campaign with ‘minor revisions’
The walk-in element of Pharmacy First is growing as Thayer shared that referrals from general practice are “decreasing”.
Reflecting on its impact on community pharmacy, he said feedback from pharmacists he spoke to were “over the moon” to be offering these services to the public.
But he admitted “a lot of pharmacists did think it would go much more exponential” in its reach.
He added that the blood pressure service was a good example of exponential growth and “a lot of people thought it would be the same for this, and it hasn’t been”, but Thayer said it’s “probably not a terrible thing, because it’s given us a little bit more time to embed the services”.
Read more: Third of public still ‘unaware’ of Pharmacy First service
Thayer also shared:
- 7 clinical conditions now account for 45% of referrals.
- 94% of patients receive a complete episode of care.
- Less than 5% of consultations are referred to general practice.
- Nearly a third of consultations are provided outside the working week.
- Nearly a third of all consultations are in the most deprived communities.
When a delegate asked him if Pharmacy First was seen as a way to fund community pharmacy, he reiterated “you need to put money into the core contract that does the core work”.
“Pharmacy First will not address, if I’m blunt, the collapse of community pharmacy from over a decade of static pound funding. It’s the exact same number of pounds that it was over a decade ago for an extremely greater volume of work,” he added.
Read more: Pharmacy First thresholds slashed until March
It comes after C+D reported last week that Community Pharmacy England (CPE) launched a new checklist, along with other resources, to promote Pharmacy First services in nurseries and schools.
And C+D reported last month that a fifth pharmacy had been suspended from the Pharmacy First service, with its integrated care board (ICB) citing “high volumes” and “the types of conditions referred” as reasons for suspension.
In October, the minimum number of Pharmacy First consultations pharmacies must complete to qualify for a monthly payment had been reduced until March 2025, with only 20 consultations needed this month, 25 in January and February 2025, and 30 in March 2025.