Pharmacy leaders call for respect and stability over next decade

Community pharmacy must be on a ‘firm and stable’ footing and better ‘appreciated and respected’ over the next decade, leaders from across the sector have said.

Other key asks include an extended version of Pharmacy First to allow for independent prescribing, better integration into the NHS, an increased skill mix, and community pharmacy becoming a ‘triage’ for patients.

These were the demands of pharmacy representative bodies who were asked at this year’s Pharmacy Show about the changes they would like to see for the sector by 2035.

‘We must be seen as the front door for the NHS’

As part of a panel session on Monday, Community Pharmacy England (CPE) chief executive Janet Morrison said she would like to see a sector that has been operating with a ‘sustainable funding and operating model’ and seen as the ‘front door for the NHS’.

‘Community pharmacy needs to be on a firm and stable footing by 2035,’ she said at the event in Birmingham NEC.

‘That means we've been operating for some time with a sustainable funding and operating model; we’re the front door for the NHS; trusted and valued by patients and communities, and that we can offer really great careers for pharmacists and their teams who can really see the value and quality of what they can deliver to their community.’

Related Article: Pharmacists concerned they will see ‘very little’ of contract funding boost

Like other panellists, Ms Morrison also wanted to see the sector respected and integrated into the NHS.

Looking to the future, Ms Morrison also stressed the need for an extension of Pharmacy First to include a community pharmacist prescribing service and for independent prescribers to have an established role.

‘We must achieve greater respect and appreciation’

Meanwhile, chief executive of the Independent Pharmacies Association, Dr Leyla Hannbeck, said she wanted to see the profession ‘appreciated and respected’ over the next 10 years.

‘I think if you are appreciated and respected as a profession, as a solution to the NHS, everything else falls into place,’ she told delegates.

‘Right now, our sector doesn’t feel that we have that appreciation, we don’t have that respect that we should be having as a key solution to the NHS’ challenges.

‘I think the fundamental bit of this is appreciation, respect, and having a higher value for our sector and profession.’

‘Pharmacy needs a properly funded dispensing contract’

Chief executive of the National Pharmacy Association (NPA), Henry Gregg, said he wanted to see a ‘properly funded dispensing contract’ by 2035, ‘if not sooner’.

Such a contract would be ‘the platform to provide a whole range of clinical services and which fully use the skills mix of the different teams and pharmacy’.

It would also mean community pharmacy ‘becomes the place where you go for management of your long term conditions, for prevention, for some of the diagnostic testing, and it really becomes like the triage for, particularly, people who have a single morbidity’.

He added: ‘I think if we have the respect, that’s the role we can potentially play.’

Related Article: Expansion of Pharmacy First a ‘key step’ in delivering preventative care

‘I don’t want pharmacists to be as worried in 10 years’ time’

Chief executive of the Company Chemists’ Association, Malcolm Harrison, said he wanted to see community pharmacy as ‘an integral and sustainable part of the NHS’.

‘I think it's really important that can work towards finding a way to integrate what we do better into the NHS and work more collaboratively,’ he told delegates.

‘How do we work more supportively, and how do we do it in a way that is sustainable and in a financial way?’

He added that in 10 years’ time he would also hope to see pharmacists, pharmacy owners and pharmacy teams be ‘a little bit happier and a little optimistic about their futures’.

‘I wouldn't want them still to be as worried as perhaps a lot of people are today,’ said Mr Harrison.

‘Pharmacy technicians must be embedded as a core part of the workforce’

Related Article: Beyond the scales: reframing eating disorder recognition in primary care

Membership director at the Association of Pharmacy Technicians UK (APTUK), Becky Bastable, stressed the importance of skill mix and the embedding of pharmacy technicians as ‘a core’ workforce member.

‘If we don’t grow that skill mix now we’re not going to be ready for 2035,’ she said.

‘My big one change is that pharmacy technicians are embedded as a core member of that workforce.’

She suggested ‘a minimum of two’ pharmacy technicians in every community pharmacy would be ‘fantastic’ in five years’ time, let alone 10 years.