Community pharmacists would need more funding to deliver new shielding programme, Covid inquiry finds

Community pharmacists would need more funding and support to deliver another shielding programme in the future, a report into the UK’s response to the Covid pandemic has warned.

The 400-page document, based on module 3 of the independent Covid-19 inquiry, said that community pharmacists were key to ensuring that clinically extremely vulnerable people could continue to access their medications without risking catching the virus.

It said that the shielding programme had increased the ‘burden’ on community pharmacies, as from April 2020 pharmacies in England began delivering medicines to the shielded population as part of an NHS England service.

Similar schemes operated in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, it added.

But the new report, published yesterday, warned that the sector would need more funding and support if a future shielding programme was introduced.

It added: ‘The contribution of community pharmacists and the funding provided, albeit after the announcement of the scheme, were key to ensuring that clinically extremely vulnerable people could continue to access their medications without risking coming into contact with the virus.

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‘It is likely that funding for and support from community pharmacists will be a necessity if any future shielding programme is introduced.’

The Covid inquiry report quoted testimony from Jonathan Rees, a superintendent pharmacist for two family-run pharmacies in Wales, who described how he regularly worked several hours of overtime per day and would deliver medicines to people at the weekends.

His pharmacy remained open seven days a week and every single day of the year. ‘I did not have a day off in that period,’ he said.

During March and April 2020, Medicine delivery services for clinically extremely vulnerable people were established across the UK during March and April 2020. These were intended to be run using community pharmacies and volunteers, with funding provided by each government, the report said.

But the inquiry heard the scheme was announced before a plan or additional funding from the UK government was in place, so initial deliveries were carried out by community pharmacies as a ‘discretionary goodwill service’.

There were more than 400,000 medicine deliveries in England during the first month, the report said.

Mr Rees is told the inquiry: ‘My wife and I would walk around our village delivering on the weekend with our three young children to ensure everybody received what they needed.’

Pharmacy leaders have urged the government to ‘act immediately’ on the recommendations to ensure that the pharmacy network and wider health services is prepared for a health crisis whenever it happens.

Henry Gregg, chief executive of the National Pharmacy Association (NPA), described the report as ‘harrowing’ reading and said that pharmacies had played a ‘heroic role’ in maintaining medicine supply and expanding vaccination services during the pandemic.

He said: ‘The inquiry chair is right to say that supporting the pharmacy network is a necessity to cope with any future health crisis – that process must start right now to reverse a decade of underfunding that is leaving too many pharmacies in a perilous position.

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‘As this report notes, it is unacceptable that pharmacies were not supported in the same way as other health professionals, despite their heroic efforts when much of the rest of the primary care system shut down.’

He added that the ongoing meningitis outbreak in Kent shows that disease can strike ‘at any time’ which it why the government must heed the lessons of the pandemic.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) echoed his call to action, saying that the government must act on the recommendations in the report and never forget the price paid by those who lost their lives during the pandemic.

RPS president Professor Claire Anderson said: ‘Pharmacy teams were on the frontline of the pandemic, but all too often were at the back of the queue when asking for support.’

The report also found that during the pandemic, pharmacists faced ‘increased workloads’ and many were at ‘high risk of burn-out’.

The report recommends that all four Governments develop emotional support for healthcare workers in the event of another pandemic.

It adds: ‘The UK may not have reached total collapse of the healthcare systems, but it teetered on the brink.’

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The report also noted that funding for community pharmacies had not increased so the workforce was ‘strained’.

Community pharmacists felt underappreciated, particularly when they were not treated in the same way as those working in other areas of healthcare – such as being initially excluded from the government’s life assurance scheme for frontline health and social care staff, it added.

The scheme provided £60,000 to the families of healthcare workers who died after contracting Covid at work.