Agenda item
Community Pharmacy - Briefing on Current Issues
Minutes:
Councillor Amy Whitelock-Gibbs, portfolio lead for Health and Adults Services introduced this item and set out the important role Community Pharmacies play in communities.
She said Pharmacies played a vital role in providing low-level health and social care interventions and were an integral part of the High Street. The Tower Hamlets Public Health team funded programmes such as Smoking Cessation, Sexual Health and Substance misuse and Pharmacies were helping to support these programmes.
In particular she highlighted how the Sexual Health programme had achieved positive outcomes because of the reach local pharmacies had within the communities. Chlamydia screening and contraception advice were offered by pharmacies and patients preferred the anonymity provided as users, especially young people, could avoid going to a formal setting such as a sexual health clinic for advice and treatment.
Dr Somen Banerjee referred Members to Pages 45-58 of the agenda pack and set out the National and Local picture. He stated the prime objective of Pharmacies was to dispense medicines and support prevention.
There are 48 pharmacies in Tower Hamlets supporting 36 GP Practices and pharmacies were the mainstay in supporting quits on the Smoking Cessation programme.
Dr Banerjee stated NHS England had conducted a medicine user review in 2015 which concluded there had been a 20% increase in the use of Pharmacies. He said the review had put forward several recommendations including a 6% reduction in funding and the clustering of pharmacies.
Issues to be noted were
· The Centralising of dispensing
· Delivering medicine to a patients home
· Having a Click and Collect service
· Or Patients going to the Pharmacy to collect medicine.
The Government had not made a decision regarding the reform of Pharmacies but a decision was expected in early December. Dr Banerjee referred members to page 54 and said responses to the Government’s proposals had been made by the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) as well as the Local Government Association which had stated pharmacies were a social and economic asset on the High Street.
Bhavin Patel, of the Local Pharmaceutical Committee was invited to comment further and he thanked the Members for the opportunity to address the Sub-Committee.
Mr Patel explained the Local Pharmaceutical Committee had an ambitious plan with local pharmacies evaluating resources and looking to modernise the services which they provided. The Pharmaceutical Committee had produced a booklet entitled the “High Street Clinic” with the aim to be the 21st century pharmacy service. Some of the principle themes were:
Getting the best out of life – managing patients with Long-term conditions with a view to provide personalised care plans and encourage behaviour change.
Getting the best out of the workforce – providing training for front-desk/reception staff on long term conditions and co-morbidity.
Getting the best out of the Healthcare system – looking to establish pharmacy federations on a hub and spoke model. Supporting local GP surgeries, supporting local care homes, supporting individual patients in their homes and supporting mental health teams
This was followed by questions from Members who made the following points:
· Members accepted that until the Government had made a decision regarding the future of Pharmacies (and their funding) it was difficult to plan and identify where the gaps would be; however they were encouraged the Local Pharmaceutical Committee and the CCG had been working together to identify how to support local pharmacies.
· The Chair stated the importance of making every contact count and understanding how pharmacy can fit into this. How does the local Pharmacy Committee see pharmacy fitting into a local health system so that it supports the integration agenda?
· The Sub-Committee Members concurred it was inevitable funding reduction and cuts would be made but local health stakeholders could influence where these cuts should be. It was suggested that a Quality Framework matrix which measured customer satisfaction, as well as the number of prescriptions dispense would be helpful. Currently the plan to close pharmacies with less than 4000 prescriptions dispensed may not be reflective of the value and customer care a pharmacy provides.
Cllr Clare Harrisson thanked invited guests for their presentations and input and summarised the key question was how local health stakeholders could build systems which truly encouraged local pharmacies to be part of the NHS structure providing useful advice and supporting long-term objectives whilst continuing to be an integral part of the High Street.
The Chair of the CCG mentioned that the following were considered a priority in terms of developing the local pharmacy offer:
· Addressing the lack of 24 hour pharmacy access locally. How could this assist with night time hospital discharge.
· Better, more comprehensive use of pharmacy ‘dashboards’ in order to help drive up quality and provide a sound evidence base for future decision making.
· Increasing the number of pharmacies with access to GP notes/shared records.
The Sub-Committee NOTED the report.
Supporting documents:
- 2016 09 07 PG - Community Pharmacy – Briefing on Current Issues - legal..., item 5. PDF 87 KB
- Health Scrutiny Community Pharmacyv1, item 5. PDF 142 KB