Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to support greater collaboration between GP surgeries and community pharmacies to ensure the optimal usage of medicines at primary care level.

NHS England is supporting the development of primary care networks through which local providers of primary care, including general practitioners (GPs) and pharmacies, collaborate to better integrate services for patients. In addition, through the Pharmacy Integration Fund, NHS England is working to better utilise the skills and expertise of pharmacy teams to improve clinical effectiveness and reduce demand on GPs and other parts of primary care system.

To support this, regional pharmacy integration events are being planned to run through 2018. These events will bring together Sustainable Transformation Leads, pharmacy providers and wider stakeholders to promote collaboration and consider how community pharmacies can be better utilised to support people to stay well in the community.