Funding

The National Pharmacy Association’s (NPA) chief executive will step down from the organisation and move to the nurses’ regulator in the new year, it has announced.

Community pharmacists are set to meet with a Northern Ireland Office (NIO) minister to discuss the sector’s funding crisis after the National Pharmacy Association’s (NPA) ballot received near unanimous support in favour of collective action.

The pharmacy negotiator has called for promised financial rewards for “high-performing” health providers announced as part of a package of NHS reforms to “apply to community pharmacy too”.

Facing almost £50,000 in wholesaler fees and NHS clawbacks, one Plymouth pharmacy owner has told C+D that she is still paying back a personal loan used to pay for NHS medicine.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DH) has admitted that the system is “no longer supporting” pharmacists, amid overwhelming support for pharmacy collective action.

GP leaders have called for pharmacy blood pressure checks to be “terminated with immediate effect” ahead of the BMA’s annual GP conference later this month, where the motion and other community pharmacy issues will be debated.

The National Pharmacy Association’s (NPA) ballot has received near unanimous support in favour of collective action, but it will now wait for the government to respond before advising members to act.

MPs have urged the government to “go back to the drawing board” and “invest” in community pharmacies as concerns grow about the upcoming hike in employer National Insurance Contributions.

Pharmacies and GPs will not receive additional funding to help with the burden of increased employer National Insurance Contributions (NICs), which was announced last week (October 30) in the chancellor’s first Budget, C+D understands.

Labour MP Sadik Al-Hassan has voiced concerns about the “decline of community pharmacies” in his first parliamentary speech.