CCA launches ‘roadmap for community pharmacy’ to provide routine primary care

The Company Chemists’ Association (CCA) has published its 2025 Prospectus, which proposes a route for community pharmacy to ‘become a natural home for patients to access routine primary care services’.

The release of its prospectus coincides with CCA’s inaugural conference taking place today in Westminster, London.

Since the CCA’s 2022 Prospectus, the industry has undergone ‘radical change’ with the launch of Pharmacy First and 'the number of non-vaccination consultations per year by the sector has grown by 170%' it states.

Proposals include

• Expanding Pharmacy First;
• Initiating treatment for high blood pressure;
• Screening and initiating treatment for most long-term conditions;
• Commissioning all NHS vaccination programmes for community pharmacy;
• Weight-loss and ‘walk-in’ smoking cessation services;
• Allowing pharmacists greater flexibility to substitute medicines during shortages.

These proposals, it states, would free up an additional 51 million primary care appointments annually, allowing general practice to focus on more complex primary care needs.

Chief executive of the CCA, Malcom Harrison, said: ‘Patients value the care and accessibility of local pharmacies but with the right investment there is so much more community pharmacies could do.

‘Pharmacies are well positioned to manage a wider range of common conditions, administer more vaccines, and provide wrap-around weight loss care, amongst other things.’

The proposals

The prospectus proposes a significant expansion of Pharmacy First.

It said an estimated 6% of GP consultations are for minor illnesses and by moving 50% of these to community pharmacy, up to 10 million consultations could be provided every year.

‘The service should move to a ‘walk-in’ model’, the prospectus also said, and a greater number of conditions could be covered by Pharmacy First such as headache, acne treatment, eye infections and simple back pain.

Over time, the CCA wants pharmacy to transition from Patient Group Direction-led (PGD) care to a more comprehensive prescribing service, as pledged in the Labour Party’s manifesto.

Other proposals relate to the treatment of long-term conditions.

Pharmacists already screen for hypertension but the prospectus said they ‘should also be empowered to initiate the supply of medicines for treating hypertension’. With approximately 600,000 new cases of high blood pressure every year, this could have a significant impact, it states.

One of the three ‘shifts’ that the government proposed in its 10-year health plan was the shift to preventive care – something that pharmacy is also ‘well placed to support’.

Their role could focus on expanding vaccination, smoking cessation, and weight loss services, the CCA’s prospectus suggested.

Lastly, it proposed more flexibility for community pharmacists to substitute medicines when there is a shortage – to ‘fix the problems in front of them’.

Enablers required to deliver the proposals

The CCA has said that several enablers are required to deliver the change they have proposed:

• Funding to address historic deficits, and investment in the sector to commission additional workload and new services;
• Encouragement for businesses to invest in their premises by ensuring pharmaceutical needs are undertaken by NHS commissioners rather than Health and Wellbeing Boards ‘which are susceptible to local pressure’;
• Access to the proposed Single Patient Record and an NHS App that integrates with pharmacies’ systems.
• Access to phlebotomy capacity to ensure that pharmacies can provide a wider array of clinical services.
• New, funded clinical care to benefit from the changes to ‘supervision’ and independent prescribing.