Pharmacy

(asked on 21st November 2023) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what criteria her Department used to determine the seven conditions that could be diagnosed and treated through the Pharmacy First service.


Answered by
Andrea Leadsom Portrait
Andrea Leadsom
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
This question was answered on 27th November 2023

The seven Pharmacy First conditions were determined by a Clinical Reference Group led by NHS England, with clinical expertise across primary care and including representatives from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to ensure the treatment pathways were designed according to the latest NICE guidance. The service design was also informed by services locally commissioned in England and schemes in Scotland and Wales.

As announced in the Primary Care Recovery Plan, we will support interoperable digital solutions to make referrals from general practice to community pharmacy and between community pharmacies easier. Community pharmacists are required, as part of their Terms of Service, to signpost or refer patients to other health and social care providers and support organisations, either by advising the patient or by providing a referral note if appropriate.

Electronic Repeat Dispensing already allows community pharmacies to manage repeat prescriptions for up to 12 months. It requires a general practitioner (GP) to send a series of prescriptions to the patient’s pharmacy in one go and the pharmacy can then repeat dispense against at appropriate intervals without the need for the patient to contact the GP.

All community pharmacies are already required to have a consultation room unless the integrated care board has agreed they are too small to have a consultation room.

Reticulating Splines