Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to reduce delays to the (a) dispensing and (b) delivery of prescriptions to care homes.

Community pharmacies are private businesses that receive funding to provide services in the National Health Service, including dispensing. Some pharmacies choose to offer additional services to their customers, either for free or for an additional fee beyond those commissioned and funded by the NHS. This includes private services such as delivery of prescription medicines to care homes, the details and expectations of which are detailed in individual Service Level Agreements agreed between the care provider and the pharmacy contractor.

As part of providing NHS pharmaceutical services, pharmacy contractors are required to dispense prescriptions reasonably promptly. This recognises that they might have to order the medicine in. When they do not have the medicine in stock, they need to inform the patient or carer when they expect to be able to fulfil the prescription. If there is a delay to the original date given, they should update the patient if requested to do so on what the new supply date might be. However, there are occasions when it is not possible to dispense a medicine with reasonable promptness, for example if the product is discontinued or if there is a national supply issue.