The National Pharmacy Association is calling for urgent talks with the new Secretary of State for Health to take action on an NHS pharmacy contract that is 'broken beyond repair and not fit for purpose'.
The NPA has launched a poll of its members in light of a new funding deal announced by the government for the current financial year.
The poll seeks to understand the impact the new deal could have on community pharmacy's ability to invest in NHS services and the need for reform in light of record numbers of pharmacies closing in England and many others having to cut back opening hours in recent years.
We are concerned that much of the funding increase will need to be spent on increased costs, including National Living Wage contributions, inflation and business rate rises, rather than addressing chronic under-funding.
NPA analysis shows that 8.9 per cent is needed to allow pharmacy budgets to just stand still. This settlement is only 1.3 per cent higher than this.
The NPA is calling for more transparency in a system currently shrouded in secrecy with little input from pharmacies or their representative bodies
Dr Olivier Picard, Chair of the National Pharmacy Association said:
“We hope this announcement will bring some immediate relief to pharmacies who are being hit by crippling new costs.
"However, we remain concerned that it does very little to close the £2.5 billion funding gap that the NHS itself identified a year ago.
“While this agreement contains some important measures and reduces uncertainty for the sector, it falls significantly short of the long-term investment and reform community pharmacy requires.
“Community pharmacies are ready to play a much bigger clinical role within the NHS, but ambitions for expanded patient services must be matched by sustained funding.
“Independent prescribing enables pharmacists to deliver accessible, high-quality care to patients on their doorsteps. Expanding prescribing services available for patients and using the skills pharmacists have already is a common sense move.
"However, although this points in the right direction, it is nowhere near ambitious enough to transform patient access to care, nor make full use of pharmacists’ skills and qualifications beyond minor ailments to manage long term conditions.
"We are also concerned that the current funding levels mean that many pharmacies will struggle to take this development forwards, risking its success. Pharmacies cannot sustain yet more loss-making work.
“The NPA is now seeking detailed feedback from members on how the settlement will affect frontline pharmacy services and future investment capacity.
“Pharmacies have been shutting in record numbers and many others have been propped up by pension savings and re-mortgaged homes. This is not sustainable and it remains to be seen if this new uplift can start to turn the tide.
"Our members have been telling us time and again that they need immediate relief from rising costs to support their pharmacies today without the threat of NHS clawbacks hanging over their business like the sword of Damocles.
"The new Health Secretary should meet us urgently so we can deliver the real reform to the frontline that patients want, pharmacies need and the Government says it is committed to delivering.
"It is clear that the contract between pharmacies and the NHS and the means by which it is agreed with the sector now requires urgent and fundamental reform, if the Government is to deliver on its promises.”
Dr Picard added:
“The Government has listened to the NPA’s repeated calls to cover immediate rising costs and halt the threat of clawing back spending on soaring medicine prices from last year that could have further destabilised pharmacies.
“It’s clear the current settlement is not enough to fix a decade of underfunding. Pharmacies were left with an invidious choice between months of chaos - with no guarantee of an improved offer - versus financial certainty that could be worth £33,000 per pharmacy.
"Funding needs to be delivered to pharmacies as soon as possible. Protracted negotiations would have meant many more months of instability and financial pain given the turmoil in the Government that would have left contractors in limbo.
“Ministers pledged that last year’s uplift was a first step to bridging that gap, and this year’s uplift, while above headline inflation, will be mostly eaten up in increasing costs so we’re clear that action is still needed to put the network on a sustainable footing.
“Now we need to focus on long term reform of the pharmacy contract to open up fairer funding, with pharmacies no longer subsiding the nation’s medicines bill and an end to the scourge of indiscriminate clawbacks, opening up new opportunities to provide more services to patients.”
