New NPA chair sets out a change in tactics

Calling off its proposed collective action is a sign that the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) has slowed down its campaign in order to engage in conversation with ministers, new NPA chair Olivier Picard has said.

At the Sigma conference 2025 in Baku, Azerbaijan, Mr Picard told delegates: 'When you campaign, you have to adapt and adjust the speed of your campaign according to traffic.

'I've heard a lot of people saying, has the NPA made a return? The NPA has changed lane,' Mr Picard said.

'We were in a fast lane. We campaigned hard. We believe that it's made a difference to what's been put to the table,' he said.

But in order to talk to ministers and policy makers about what reform could look like, 'we have to adapt the speed at which we travel', Mr Picard added.

And he compared the NPA's strategy to the trade union and professional body for doctors, the British Medical Association (BMA).

'You see it with the BMA, they have a very similar approach, where they will come up with actions, they will come up with threats, and then they will slow down, they will wait, they will talk to government, and then they will again elevate what they do.

Related Article: What will hub and spoke changes mean for independents?

'And I think the NPA is exactly in that space,' he said.

'We need to give the ministers [and negotiator Community Pharmacy England] a chance to get something meaningful for the sector,' Mr Picard added.

But he said that when the result of the next round of negotiations came out, 'the NPA will act in the best interest of members' as well as independent pharmacists more widely.

Also in his address to the conference, Mr Picard shared how he had shifted his own business from a dispensing-based to a service-based model.

He stressed that community pharmacy sector must make the most of technology, including artificial intelligence (AI), and the sector must be made attractive to new registrants.

AI can't leave us behind

Mr Picard said that the NPA would be looking at how independents can ‘get on board with AI before it leaves us behind’.

He stressed that the community pharmacy sector ‘must optimise the use of technology’.

Change is 'scary' but worth it

Mr Picard shared that in his own pharmacies, he had shifted from a dispensing-based model to a service-based model.

He told delegates that as a business owner, the shift had been ‘scary’ and required ‘dizzying’ amounts of investment.

‘Do I enjoy spending thousands of pounds on IT [and] when I need to renew my PGDs?

‘Of course I don’t.

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‘But then I remind myself that across my four pharmacies this generates hundreds of thousands of pounds of income that wouldn’t be possible otherwise.

‘Life is full of opportunities. As a profession, as business owners, I think we would be mad to let them go by,’ Mr Picard said.

Hub and spoke

Mr Picard told Sigma 2025 delegates: 'At the NPA, we will be providing the solution to our members who want to engage in having spoke activities.

'We are waiting for the regulatory changes for that to happen, and then we will form a view [as to] what that looks like.'

But he highlighted that in its current form, hub-and-spoke does not work for independents.

Prescribing will make community appealing

Mr Picard said there was a need to ‘inspire students to join community pharmacy’.

And he suggested that independent prescribing services in community pharmacy would make the sector attractive to new registrants.

Related Article: More than 17,000 community pharmacist prescribing consultations so far

He added that one of his aims at the NPA was to both attract pharmacists into community pharmacy as well as into pharmacy ownership.

Also at the Sigma conference this week, the chief pharmaceutical officers (CPhOs) for England, Scotland and Northern Ireland discussed how to enable joined-up care for patients whose long-term conditions are being managed by community pharmacist prescribers in the future.

And in a letter presented at the conference, Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer praised community pharmacies for the 'vital role' they play in NHS reform, including enabling 'shifts' from hospital to community and treatment to prevention.