Think tank calls for full integration of pharmacy in reformed NHS

Pharmacy must be fully integrated in the reformed NHS to avoid the duplication of services, think tank The Bow Group has warned.

The Bow Group said there was "a potential [for] community pharmacy [to] become detached from the public health service with parallel services commissioned via Public Health England, leading to a duplication of effort".

Responding to the government's public health white paper, the think tank went on to stress that the "innate potential" of community pharmacies to help improve public health and recommended that pharmacy played a stronger role in flu vaccination. The group also called for a pharmacy quality and outcomes framework (QOF) following the recent decommissioning Doncaster's award-winning QOF initiative and for a national pharmacy-based smoking cessation service.

Mike Hewitson, community pharmacist and member of the Bow Group health policy committee, said the government must "throw both feet in and invest in pharmacy".

"I think we are constantly being told it's all about quality and the future but we keep seeing schemes like Doncaster's QOF axed," he told C+D. "It's disappointing because it undermines confidence of contractors to invest in the future."

He cited the success of Scotland's smoking cessation service, where pharmacy was responsible for 56 per cent of all quit attempts, to demonstrate the importance of funding. "If you throw both feet in and invest in us you get great results like in Scotland and it's more cost-effective so it fits in with the QIPP agenda," he explained.

Mr Hewitson added that pharmacies should be used to boost uptake of the flu vaccination, following an Isle of Wight evaluation showing that pharmacies vaccinated difficult to reach groups. He added: "GPs will kick off about that because it's potentially a threat to them in terms of lost income, but there were a high number [of pharmacy patients in the Isle of Wight] that that would not have had the vaccination otherwise."