Baroness Cumberlege (Con)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In so doing, I draw attention to my interests as declared in the register. Also, I am a vice-chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Pharmacy.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Prior of Brampton) (Con)
The Government recognise the vital importance of community pharmacy. Our recent reforms will reward quality and embed and integrate pharmacies with primary care, improving the services offered to the public and making better use of pharmacists’ clinical skills.
Baroness Cumberlege
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer. We are at one in agreeing that community pharmacy has an important part to play in the nation’s health. Is my noble friend aware of the report carried out by PwC, which showed that community pharmacy contributes £3 billion net to the NHS, the public sector, patients and wider society? That is through just 12 additional services; it excludes the core work of dispensing medicines. Will my noble friend and his ministerial colleagues reconsider the swingeing 7.4% cut in the income of community pharmacies next year and instead invest in their services, which are accessible 24/7, enhance the public’s health, and prevent patients going to more expensive GPs and ultimately to hospital and A&E departments?
Lord Prior of Brampton
My Lords, I do not recognise the figure of 7.4%. The actual reduction is 4% next year and 3.4% the following year. I echo my noble friend’s comments and recognise the huge importance of community pharmacy. If we look forward 10 years, we will see a much greater role for community pharmacy within the NHS in supplying many of the services that are currently supplied by more conventional NHS services.
Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister mentioned clinical skills. Does he agree that in rural areas in particular, community pharmacies play a role much wider than their clinical function in giving advice, information and sign-posting to patients and their families? Does he agree that that is a very important part of their function that should continue?
Lord Prior of Brampton
Yes, my Lords, I completely agree with that. It is worth saying that the pharmacy access scheme will ensure that pharmacies in rural areas or in the top 20% for deprivation will receive higher levels of income than pharmacies grouped together in urban areas.
Lord Low of Dalston (CB)
My Lords, whatever the precise scale of the cut, a cut is still a cut. Would the Minister not agree that, rather than cutting pharmacies’ budgets, the Government should be commissioning more services from pharmacies in order to relieve pressure on the hard-pressed NHS?
Lord Prior of Brampton
My Lords, the fact is that across the NHS we are looking to save £22 billion, and sadly, community pharmacy cannot be exempt from those necessary efficiency requirements. But I repeat that, over time, we will see more and more NHS services delivered by community pharmacies, whether it is a sore throat testing service or the treating of minor ailments.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, in these rather strange times, can I take it that the noble Lord’s party no longer believes in competition? This policy is intended to reduce the number of community pharmacies in the high street. Why do the Government want to reduce patient choice when the profession clearly can help reduce demands on GPs and A&E services at a very pressurised time?
Lord Prior of Brampton
This party does believe in competition. But it also believes that the NHS’s supporting community pharmacies to a very large extent when 40% of them are in clusters of three or more within 10 minutes’ walk from each other, and paying an establishment fee to each of those pharmacies, is probably not a very good allocation of resources.
Baroness Janke (LD)
My Lords, have the Government yet published the cost-based evidence for the cuts to the community pharmacies budget, and what safeguards will they put in place to ensure that the most needy communities are not hit hardest by the cuts to the pharmacies budget?
Lord Prior of Brampton
The pharmacy access scheme is being set up to deliver exactly what the noble Baroness is asking for—that rural pharmacies and those in very deprived areas will receive greater payments than others. I am not quite sure what report she is referring to. I will have to look at her question afterwards and write to her.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)
My Lords, are not people more willing to go to pharmacies for immediate help with dental conditions in particular because otherwise, they have to pay to have someone look at their mouth, and instead they can go in and ask for some sort of treatment if they have a pain? The pharmacist can diagnose at a very early stage any form of oral cancer—and indeed other conditions—which would otherwise not be noticed until perhaps too late.
Lord Prior of Brampton
My noble friend has made a very good case in support of community pharmacies, which provide a fantastic service. My own local community pharmacy provides an extraordinary service for people living in the part of rural Norfolk where I come from. They have an important role in public health as well.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
Will the Government undertake to review the funding model for community pharmacies? If they are undertaking more diagnostic services and reviews and giving more advice, while also rationalising the medication people are on, they are effectively advising themselves out of a source of income when they are reimbursed with dispensing fees. If they are going to lose income, it is very difficult for them to advise people to come off a range of medication.
Lord Prior of Brampton
My Lords, we have just looked again at the community pharmacy funding model and have decided to go from a purely volume-based payment structure to one with much more quality embedded in it, and to remove the permanent establishment fee over time. At the same time, we are developing the pharmacy integration fund, so that in future pharmacies will provide some of the care currently provided by highly pressurised GPs and NHS 111 services.