Pharmacy industry welcomes new general practice contract

The new five-year contract for general practice announced by NHS England includes hiring 20,000 more pharmacists, physios, paramedics, physician associates and social prescribing support workers to help GP practices work together as part of a local primary care network.
Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s English Pharmacy Board chair, Sandra Gidley, said: “It is a significant step forward to embedding pharmacists’ clinical skills and medicines expertise across all areas of primary care and a clear indication of the direction of travel for the profession within the NHS. This opens doors to new ways of providing care that involve pharmacists across the NHS, including community and hospital colleagues. It’s vital that all pharmacists have the opportunity to get involved with their local PCN.”
Simon Dukes, chief executive of the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee PSNC said: “The scale of this transformation is unprecedented, and GPs will undoubtedly benefit from being supported to deliver these changes with a five-year funding package. This is exactly the approach that the NHS must now take with community pharmacies so that we too can play our part in improving local healthcare. GPs will be bringing together local healthcare providers into the new networks and we must engage proactively with them and find ways to position ourselves within those PCNs. All pharmacies will need to take steps to work as closely with local GPs as they can. Success will also involve transforming the services that we offer, and community pharmacies will need to be ready for radical changes, such as partnering with other contractors to jointly meet the needs of their local PCN. We must find ways for community pharmacists to perform some of the roles of the PCN clinical pharmacists and we want to work with NHS England to facilitate local engagement to ensure that community pharmacy is at the heart of the developing local plans.”
The National Pharmacy Association said in a statement: “It intensifies the dilemmas faced by community pharmacy owners who invest in training and development only to see people migrate to general practice. This is a risk that must be carefully managed, so that these new primary care workforce targets genuinely add to capacity. Our sector has consistently delivered for patients and the NHS, and deserves a substantial and sustainable multi-year settlement. We need this to be the basis upon which community pharmacy contract negotiations begin.”