Conservative MP for Farnham and Bordon Gregory Stafford yesterday (January 6) called for a “financial incentive” for GPs to engage with Pharmacy First during a House of Commons debate.
Speaking about the NHS backlog, he said that GPs are a “fundamental part” of making health services “more localised” and “closer to the patient” but stressed that “GPs are overstretched”.
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“The previous government really pushed Pharmacy First, which was a superb programme,” Stafford said, claiming that “this government wants to go further with it, but there are disincentives for general practitioners to embrace Pharmacy First”.
“What will ministers do to ensure that there are no financial disincentives to work with pharmacies?” he asked.
“If we are to deal with the backlog, there has to be a financial incentive,” Stafford stressed.
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Criticising a government announcement that yesterday set out plans to end waiting list backlogs, Stafford said that the statement had a “lack of genuine reform”.
“There was a lot of rehashing of previous policies, perhaps eking them out a tad further than the previous Conservative government,” he said.
Pharmacy First ENT
The new plan for reforming elective care, yesterday published by NHS England (NHSE), pledged to apply the Pharmacy First model to ear, nose and throat (ENT) services.
“ENT is currently mainly delivered in secondary care, including tinnitus and simple ear infections, although approximately 30% of referrals can be managed earlier and in a more convenient setting,” it said.
It pledged to “bolster the community offer by expanding non-surgical community-based ENT services, maximising pharmacy first approaches and developing one-stop clinical models to support patients needing ear care and patients with rhinitis”.
Read more: ‘Three clicks more than we want’: GPs refuse to make Pharmacy First referrals
The plan also highlighted a 12-month community pharmacy hearing health pilot in South West London, where trained pharmacy staff performed digital otoscopy, earwax removal and hearing checks on patients using a mobile-based three-in-one otoscopy device.
It said that 36% of patients were seen within a week, almost 70% were able to complete their treatment and patient experience of the pilot was “incredibly positive”, with 99% reporting they were happy with the service.
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Company Chemists’ Association (CCA) chief executive Malcolm Harrison said that the body “absolutely supports a Pharmacy-First style approach to ear, nose and throat services”.
“Pharmacy First has proven to be a success in a short space of time and expansion into new conditions will ensure even more patients benefit,” he added.
But he warned that the government must consider how to “turbocharge Pharmacy First” if it is “serious about shifting care into the community”, adding that pharmacies urgently need an uplift in funding.
Read more: CCA: ‘Urgent need’ for more GP referrals amid modest Pharmacy First growth
Meanwhile, C+D exclusively reported in March that one pharmacy missed out on 10 consultation referrals in one day after GPs failed to formally refer patients to the Pharmacy First Service.
One anonymous contractor said at the time that GPs had told them that the three clicks needed to make an online Pharmacy First referral were “three clicks more than [they] want to do”.
And pharmacy leaders have repeatedly raised concerns that public awareness campaigns around the service have been ineffective and that GPs are not engaging with the service.
