Pharmacists have branded NHS England’s delay in providing the paperwork for its first national clinical audit “very disappointing”.

The audit on emergency medicine supplies was due to begin on Monday (March 9), but NHS England told C+D the following day that “delays in setting up” meant it would launch later than planned. The commissioning body did not provide C+D with a new launch date for the audit.

Hertfordshire LPC chief executive Helen Musson said many contractors in her area had prepared for the audit and  were “really concerned” that  NHS England had not sent out the necessary paperwork. NHS England could have “communicated better” with contractors, said Ms Musson, who stressed that the delay had caused “unnecessary worry”.

“I don’t understand why they couldn’t get an audit out in a timely way. At the very least they should have sent out some information so contractors didn’t worry,” she added.

Since 2005, pharmacies have been contractually required to carry out an annual audit on an a topic agreed with their NHS England area teams. PSNC and NHS England had decided to conduct a national audit this year, but PSNC said last Friday that delays to the publication of the paperwork had made launching the initiative on time “impossible”.

Community Pharmacy West Yorkshire chief executive Robbie Turner told C+D that pharmacy teams in his area had been braced to begin the audit on Monday, and the delay could leave them with less time to prepare the second time around.

“The audit is really positive for community pharmacy to demonstrate the work it does in urgent and emergency care... but the delay doesn’t build up co-operation between pharmacies and NHS England,” he stressed.

NHS England told C+D the audit would involve pharmacies collecting data on how their provision of emergency supplies changed at weekends and bank holidays. This would give a “new national insight” into the role of pharmacies and the extent to which they helped patients avoid using “more expensive forms of care”, it said.

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