The pharmacy smoking cessation service has been expanded to “enable better use of skill mix” with delivery of “parts” of the service by “registered and non-registered pharmacy staff”, the government announced this week (March 31).
Under the new pharmacy contract for 2025/26, “suitably trained and competent staff” who are not pharmacists or pharmacy technicians can deliver consultations for the service, Community Pharmacy England (CPE) said.
Read more: Funding breakdown: Write-offs, service payments and activity fees
The reforms also include the introduction of patient group directions (PGDs) for the provision of varenicline and cytisinicline (cytisine) under the service, which can be delivered by both pharmacy technicians and pharmacists, CPE added.
The negotiator set out that these changes “will require developments to IT systems” and the date they will apply from “will be announced in due course”.
Read more: ‘Don’t sign up!‘: LPC chief advises against new smoking service over fees and safety concerns
Other services expanded as part of the new deal this week include the pharmacy contraception service (PCS), with the morning-after pill to be made “available free of charge” at pharmacies in England from October.
Antidepressants will also be added to the new medicine service (NMS) from October, while £215 million will fund the cost of Pharmacy First clinical pathways consultations as well as the PCS and the hypertension case-finding service (HCFS).
And CPE announced a raft of increases in fees for various services, as well as a delay to the “bundling” requirement for pharmacies to offer the PCS, HCFS and Pharmacy First to qualify for a monthly fixed payment.
Vape “starter kit”
It comes after a local pharmaceutical committee (LPC) advised contractors in February “not to sign up” to a new smoking cessation service agreement over “unacceptable” fees that meant pharmacies engaging with it would be “doing so at a loss”.
In January, MPs called for clarifications of advertising restrictions for nicotine vapes to ensure pharmacists don’t find themselves “on the wrong side of the law” for promoting vaping as a “stop smoking device”.
Read more: MPs: Pharmacists must not be ‘criminalised’ over vapes as quit aid
CPE announced in November that pilot pharmacies were set to offer patients vouchers for a vape “starter kit” and “up to four weeks’ worth of vape liquid” in a bid to help them stop smoking.
And last April, data from NHS Stop Smoking Services in England showed a 10% rise in the number of people using community pharmacies to start quitting smoking.
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