The Health and Social Care Committee has today published the Government's
response to the predecessor committee's report on Pharmacy and
has written back to the
Minister of State for Care, , to follow up on particular
issues raised in the report and response.
In their report in May 2024, the predecessor Health and Social
Care committee said the Government must urgently reform the
funding framework for community pharmacy if more clinical
services are to be delivered and increasing demands for
medication are to be met.
In its response, the Government says that NHS England are
currently undertaking an economic analysis of the sector, which
will inform future proposals for funding and contractual
arrangements.
The Government says it will take the committee's recommendations
on the complexity of current arrangements into consideration in
developing any future proposals for consultation with Community
Pharmacy England.
The predecessor committee in May called on the Government to
address medicine shortages, which they warned risked undermining
initiatives such as Pharmacy First by eroding public confidence
in pharmacists.
In its response, the Government says that the Department of
Health and Social Care ‘working closely with NHS England, is
taking forward a range of actions to improve our ability to
mitigate and manage shortages and strengthen our
resilience.'
Amongst its recommendations the committee also called for an
integrated and funded workforce plan for pharmacy to be
developed. The Government states that it will ‘this summer…
publish a refreshed Long Term Workforce Plan', and that it is
‘committed to growing the pharmacy workforce'.
Throughout its response, the Government cites its 10 Year Health
Plan, due to be published in the Spring of 2025, and says that
the engagement on the 10 Year Health Plan ‘provides opportunity
for gathering ideas and evidence to shape future clinical service
models in community pharmacy'.
In the letter the
Committee has sent to the Department today, MPs ‘welcome...
the fact that [the Government] are actively considering the role
of pharmacies in the development of the 10 Year Health Plan' and
they ‘urge the Government to be bold and ambitious when setting
out its vision for the role that community pharmacies could
play'.
The Committee's letter follows up on four of the recommendations
made in the Pharmacy report, on how pharmacies cope with
shortages of medicines and on their ability to provide
substitutions without the patient needing to revisit their GP.
The letter also asks for clarity on their recommendation that NHS
England should commission community pharmacies to provide all
routine and seasonal immunisations for adults and children.
The Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, MP, said:
“The predecessor committee made important recommendations
calling on the Government to act at pace to address the pressing
issues in community pharmacy on funding, medicine shortages and
challenges in the workforce.
“While we are pleased to hear the Government say that these
recommendations will feed into the 10 Year Health Plan and the
Long-Term Workforce Plan, we are concerned that their response
does not clearly reflect the sense of urgency on these matters
which the predecessor committee derived from its inquiry.
“We will be closely examining the 10 Year Health Plan when it
is published in the spring and will watch to see the extent to
which the committee's recommendations will be implemented.
“In the here and now, there are immediate questions that we
have about the Government's response to the predecessor
committee's report which we are following up in our letter to the
Department of Health and Social Care today.
“In particular, we know that uptake of key childhood
vaccinations is falling, so we are keen to know whether the
Government sees more of a role for community pharmacy in
addressing this challenge.”
ENDS
Notes to editors
