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Never before has community pharmacy been consistently as high up the news agenda as we come together to back the amazing service NPA members provide. The NPA featured in national media around 2,000 times in the second half of the year alone.
The NPA mobilised an unprecedented campaign for fair funding, which continues at pace. With three days of action, the first ever ballot on concerted action against cuts in England, Wales and northern Ireland and unprecedented nationwide protests, we made community pharmacy a force to be reckoned with.
Thanks to all those who voted in our ballot on collective action. A large majority said they would withdraw certain services or reduce opening hours in the interests of maintaining a safe service to patients. Our brilliant executive team is currently drafting guidance that will help our members prepare – should we be forced to take this unprecedented step in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
We led the roll out of the Save Our Pharmacies petition, which has now amassed nearly 500,000 signatures.
And we haven’t finished yet. We will continue to campaign and make people aware of the crisis in community pharmacy until the scandalous underfunding of your vital services comes to an end.
Covid was a defining moment for our country, and pharmacy’s contribution must never be forgotten
We have made the most of our ‘core participant’ status in the Covid-19 public inquiry, to ensure that our members’ heroic work and sacrifices are included in the official record of the pandemic – and shape the recommendations that we hope will ensure the Covid pandemic is an experience never to be repeated. With first hand testimony from our Chair Nick Kaye, and many members, we told the story of your contribution.
We argued for increased investment to maintain a resilient pharmacy network capable of facing future public health crises, and even extracted a public admission from former Health Secretary Matt Hancock that the healthcare system is culturally biased against community pharmacy.
We’ve continued to deliver excellent learning and development, great pharmacy advice and support, and gold standard pharmacy insurance.
NPA Insurance no longer charges for vaccine administration, including covid, flu and travel vaccinations which are administered by any suitably trained staff members.
That’s just one of several enhancements to NPAI’s offer during 2024. NPAI’s indemnity policy now extends, at no extra charge, to cover employed Designated Prescribing Practitioners for training of newly qualified independent prescribers working for our policy holders. This enhancement reflects NPAI’s commitment to facilitate the evolution of community pharmacy, by enabling the independent prescribers of the future to practice.
Across our accredited and non-accredited training courses, student satisfaction now stands at an impressive 89% and supervisor satisfaction at 88%.
We continued to develop our online course offering, with our Accuracy Checking for Technicians course as well as our Pharmacy Undergraduate Programme becoming available for enrolment on our NPA Learning Academy. We also grew our relationships with Higher Education Institutions and have secured a partnership with a number of Universities to provide our MCA course as part of their undergraduate course.
The range of information hubs available to NPA members now includes
Find them all at our brand new NPA membership hub , where you can also manage your NPA learners and register for NPA events. It offers an improved digital user experience, more personalised content, and easier access to important information, benefits, and membership services.
We’ve ramped up our member engagement, including a programme of face-to-face meetings across the UK, plus business masterclasses. In all we’ve held an amazing 25 member events, including highly popular sessions on Pharmacy First (England).
Membership numbers have grown to over 6,000 pharmacies- which puts us in a stronger position to argue for the interests of independent community pharmacy and we intend to make this extra weight count.
We launched a new cashback scheme at the start of the year which has led to near on 1,000 members receiving over £56,000 back for using the NPA. During the year we also launched a member referral scheme whereby a member can split £250 with every new member branch they refer to the NPA.
We’re working alongside partners across the UK to give voice to pharmacies on a huge range of issues. We are in regular touch with decision makers – in politics, in the NHS and in Government.
In the spring came a landmark parliamentary report in which the Health Select Committee in Westminster agreed with the NPA’s position that the pharmacy contract is fundamentally broken and in need of urgent reform. MPs call for overhaul of pharmacy contract | InPharmacy
Given the change of government in Westminster, the NPA invested in an active presence at the Labour Party conference in the Autumn, and we continue to work with other pharmacy bodies to support the All Party Pharmacy Group in the Westminster Parliament.
November saw another successful Ask Your Pharmacist Week, the NPA’s annual flagship public awareness campaign, aimed at highlighting the vital role of independent community pharmacies across the UK.
We called on Scottish Health Secretary Neil Gray to intervene to compensate pharmacies left with a financial hole because of flaws in Scotland’s new payment system, which was introduced as a new way to process payments to pharmacies, dispensing doctors and medical appliance suppliers. It’s unacceptable that hard working community pharmacies should be facing financial stress because an IT system cannot get its sums right!
Our support for members in Northern Ireland to deliver new services continues, as well as work relating to underfunding, Foundation Year training and pharmacy technicians’ registration. We are looking forward to the next NPA Member Forum which will be held alongside the inaugural Northern Ireland Pharmacy Trade Show on 15th January 2025. This event will provide members with a great opportunity to network, view innovative practice solutions and to gather a collective voice for the independent network on the future of pharmacy.
NPA members in Wales showed their level of concern over funding by turning out in proportionately very high numbers for our collective action ballot. Welsh-specific SOPs, such as the common ailments service, are now available on the membership hub and our face-to-face forums have continued throughout the year.
The continued development of Integrated Care Systems in England gave us new opportunities to ensure community pharmacy is appropriately represented in leadership and accountability arrangements within the NHS. Having played a significant part last year in the development of the ‘Fuller Review’ and ‘Hewitt Review’ into how ICSs should best be governed, this year we shared several conference platforms with senior NHS commissioners.
We have grown our Trusted Partner program with a further 10 solutions some of which are based on suggestions from our members. Our programme now has over 40 Trusted Partners and this year we have added solutions such as calibration of medical equipment, shop fitters, digital payment services and clinical solutions to help support our members save money and earn more money by offering more services.
In England we continue to support many members by acting as a PharmOutcomes affinity group saving participating members over £80,000 during the year.
We have been busy working with our data partner RWA Pharmacy who are the leading provider of data driven business insights for UK Pharmacy, to bring to life a new business intelligence solution for members with up to 4 pharmacies which is currently in beta testing. We will share more on this in the new year as this solution will help pharmacies understand where missed opportunities can be leveraged around key operations in their pharmacy.
In the New Year we will be saying a fond farewell to our chief executive, Paul Rees, who has made such an impact during his time with us. We wish him well in his new position at the head of the Nursing and Midwifery Council and we look forward to the arrival of a new NPA chief executive in the new year.
Our NPA Board has made it clear that we will continue robust campaigning strategy that has generated such a high public and political profile for the sector.