Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of changes to funding for community pharmacies on access to healthcare for deprived communities.

Community pharmacy is a vital part of the National Health Service. We want to see a high quality community pharmacy service that is properly integrated into primary care and public health in line with the Five Year Forward View.

We want to make pharmacists a pivotal part of primary care for all patient groups, including the elderly and vulnerable, by increasing the number who bring their skills to general practitioner practices, care homes, urgent care and public health settings. We have consulted on how best to introduce a Pharmacy Integration Fund to help transform how pharmacists, their teams and community pharmacy will operate in the NHS, bringing clear benefits to patients and the public.

Our aim is to ensure that those community pharmacies upon which people depend continue to thrive. We are consulting on the introduction of a Pharmacy Access Scheme, which will provide more NHS funds to certain pharmacies compared with others, considering factors such as location and the health needs of the local population.

The community pharmacy proposals for 2016/17 and beyond, on which we have consulted, are being considered in respect to the public sector equality duty, the family test and relevant duties of the Secretary of State under the NHS Act 2006. This will consider health inequality, individuals with restricted mobility and access to healthcare for deprived communities.

An impact assessment will be completed to inform final decisions and published in due course.