Pharmacy stands ready to provide a reimagined front door to the NHS

Responding to analysis by the National Pharmacy Association that finds at least 6 million hours of time in A&E was taken up last year by patients with issues that could have been treated in a community pharmacy, Ruth Rankine, director of the primary care network at the NHS Confederation, said:

“Pharmacy continues to play an ever-increasing role in primary care, providing vital support to GPs and their teams and helping to reduce pressure on emergency and urgent care services. This new report shows that there are still large numbers of people going to A&E who could receive care more quickly from GPs and pharmacies, which is more convenient for them and more cost-effective for the NHS.

“Pharmacy First has been a very good starting point to increasing the amount of support pharmacists can offer the public. We welcome its expansion along with the roll out of independent prescribing and more coming on stream, but there is still the need to cut bureaucracy and improve digital interoperability to allow for greater integration between the different parts of the system.

“Our community pharmacy members are ambitious, innovative and want to work with partners to deliver new models of care, and better support local communities. With the upcoming ten-year plan expected to speed up the shift towards the NHS becoming a neighbourhood-based, integrated care model, pharmacy stands ready to provide a reimagined front door to the NHS.”