Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department has taken to roll-out a minor ailments scheme through community pharmacies as recommended by the independent review of community pharmacy clinical services.

Minor ailment services are currently commissioned locally by the National Health Service according to need. However a national minor illness scheme is in development, building on a pilot digital minor illness referral service (DMIRS) that commenced last year in the North East. This scheme provides direct referrals from NHS 111 to community pharmacy. Three further DMIRS pilots, supported by the Pharmacy Integration Fund, are due to be launched by early autumn 2018, in Devon, London (in a phased approach), and East Midlands. The areas will be adopting the same model used in the North East with some minor adaptations dependent on the local NHS 111 case mix. An evaluation will inform any next steps for the project.