Services ‘just as important’ as dispensing, says Welsh pharmacy chief
The Welsh government has an “aspiration” to allocate the same amount of money to clinical services that it does to dispensing in future pharmacy funding contracts, chief pharmaceutical officer (CPhO) Andrew Evans has revealed.
This commitment recognises that “services are just as important to people as having their prescriptions dispensed”, he told delegates at the Pharmacy Show in Birmingham last week (October 17).
Mr Evans presented a slide (see image above) that showed how the funding allocated to clinical services has increased since 2016/17, when spending represented just £4 million of the total community pharmacy budget.
Read more: Independent prescriber pharmacists in Wales deliver 16k consultations
This year, £15.5m was allocated to clinical services, with £4m of this ring-fenced for prescribing services, Mr Evans specified.
But by 2024/25, around £50m will go to “additional clinical services, whether that’s local commissioning, national directives or whether that’s the independent prescribing service”, he said.
Some £20m has been set aside to pay for pharmacists’ independent prescribing fees over 2024/25, Mr Evans added.
“What this chart doesn’t show is that in the longer term, we have an aspiration for service funding and dispensing funding to each represent 50% of the overall contractual arrangement,” he revealed.
Investing in independent prescribing
Deputy CPhO Lloyd Hambridge revealed that there are now an average of 5,000 pharmacist independent prescriber service consultations per month, after the service went live in April.
“At present, we have 20% of our network being able to deliver those,” he told delegates at the Pharmacy Show.
Besides the government’s joint commitment with Health Education Improvement Wales to train 60 new independent prescribers each year, the government is also ensuring that those who are already practising in a community pharmacy have access to “extended and advanced-level training and education”, Mr Hambridge said.
Read more: Welsh government pumps cash into national pharmacy clinical service
The Welsh government also funded a protected learning time pilot to understand how such a policy could be used in future, he revealed.
“Three models were evaluated during that time”, focusing on “supporting those independent prescribers to access peer support” and offering additional training to expand their scope of practice, he said.
The government is currently waiting for an evaluation report and will share the findings in due course, Mr Hambridge said.
