Health secretary to push care from hospitals towards ‘the high street’

The health secretary has outlined his ambitions to drive ‘much of what is done’ in hospitals towards ‘the high street’ and remote services over the next decade.

Wes Streeting said the move would come as part of NHS reforms that would have ‘radical implications’ for health services, as the government shifts care closer to home.

Responding to his comments made at an NHS Confederation conference in Manchester today, community pharmacy leaders have said that with the right support and investment, pharmacies will be ‘key’ to the government’s redesign of the health service.

Mr Streeting's comments come ahead of the government’s highly anticipated 10-year plan for the health service – of which sector leaders hope pharmacies will be crucial to.

‘As we deliver the transformational shifts in our 10-year plan, from hospital to community, analogue to digital, sickness to prevention, it will have radical implications for services,’ he said.

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‘Much of what's done in a hospital today will be done on the high street, over the phone or through the app in a decade's time.’

Earlier this week it was announced that more patients will receive appointment reminders, screening invitations and test results directly to their smartphones within the next three years under the NHS App.

And last month, a new ‘Amazon-style’ prescription tracker went live on the NHS App, enabling patients to track their prescriptions across 1,500 community pharmacies in England.

Mr Streeting added that as part of radical NHS reforms, he was also ‘open to’ acute NHS trusts providing primary care services, as well as community services.

‘Whatever services will enable them to meet the needs of their patients in a more integrated and efficient way,’ he said.

He also suggested there was ‘no reason why successful GPs should not be able to run local hospitals, or why nurses should not be leading neighbourhood health services’.

National Pharmacy Association (NPA) chief executive Henry Gregg said community pharmacy ‘can be key to radical service redesign that shifts NHS care out of hospitals into the community, provided sufficient investment’.

‘Pharmacies should be supported to deliver more primary care interventions that free up GPs to take on roles currently performed in expensive secondary care settings,’ he added.

‘A greater role for pharmacies in illness prevention will also have a positive impact in terms of dampening demand for hospital care.’

Mr Gregg said the NPA ‘continues to make this case’ to the health secretary and that it believed the government was ‘by now very conscious of the potential for pharmacy-led transformation’.

Royal Pharmaceutical Society director of pharmacy Elen Jones added that pharmacies would be ‘crucial to the government’s mission to deliver patient care closer to home’.

‘We have seen some welcome progress with Pharmacy First and, with the right support and investment, an enhanced community pharmacist prescribing service will help deliver the government’s ambition to deliver more care in the community,’ she said.

‘With continued pressure across the system, sustainable funding and workforce support are essential to ensure patients can continue to access pharmacists’ expertise.’

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On Wednesday, NHS England’s primary care lead Dr Amanda Doyle suggested community pharmacy must ‘grow’ as a ‘key clinical service provider’ within primary care.

And the chancellor committed to increase NHS funding by 3% a year until 2028/29 as part of the government’s latest spending review.