Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, when his Department plans to respond to the Murray review of community pharmacy; and if he will make a statement.

NHS England commissioned the Murray review and is now actively progressing transformation of pharmacy practice and working with the pharmacy professions to improve the quality and efficiency of services in line with many of the recommendations set out in the Review. This includes:

- An increased focus on improving value and outcomes from medicines.

- Measures to promote pharmacist and pharmacy technician integration in primary care settings, making the most of their clinical skills, supported by the Pharmacy Integration Fund (PhIF).

Some examples of the actions underway as part of this include:

- Programmes to deploy pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in integrated multi-disciplinary teams to carry out medicines optimisation and relieve the pressures on general practitioner practices and hospital admissions, funded by the PhIF and with evaluation in place. These include recruiting pharmacists to work in the Integrated Urgent Care Clinical Assessment Service contact centres and NHS 111 services, and the ongoing development of a care homes medicines optimisation scheme to tackle inappropriate polypharmacy.

- A programme of education and development is being developed in collaboration with Health Education England to support this transformation. This will include access to post-registration training and development for community pharmacists, equivalent to 1,000 postgraduate diplomas a year up to 2019, a new training pathway for pharmacists who work in care homes and integrated urgent care hubs/NHS 111, and independent prescribing qualifications for up to 2,000 pharmacists.

- A digital medicines strategy for pharmacy to upgrade the digital infrastructure to support transformation.

- NHS England has set up four Regional Medicines Optimisation Committees, chaired by regional medical directors, which are working to ensure system wide medicines optimisation.