Last week, the parliamentary health and social care committee’s (HSCC) expert panel, made up of MPs, released a report on the government’s progress on fulfilling commitments to pharmacies, which deemed that progress overall “requires improvement”. It’s another blow for the government, whose pledges to improve the services of community pharmacies are failing to come to fruition, and in turn impacting patient outcomes nationally.

 

The report found that demand for community pharmacies has increased significantly, yet they are unable to meet this surge in demand due to inadequate funding relative to costs. Across nine different commitments, the HSCC only found the government to have met two, with five labelled as ‘requires improvement’ and two as ‘inadequate’.

 

Read more: HSCC gives scathing review of DH progress on pharmacy pledges

 

The government’s chances of achieving its Pharmacy First policy, as outlined in its recent £645 million commitment to community pharmacies, by the end of the year is in very real danger. There have been over 200 net closures of pharmacies in 2023 alone,  and with pharmacies chronically underfunded and understaffed, there is little hope that they will be able to service the increased demand that comes with the new service.

 

Advocating digital transformation

 

I strongly believe that digital transformation is the way forward, and key to saving our community pharmacies.

 

Community pharmacy funding has fallen by 30% in real terms since 2016, while pharmacy job vacancies have doubled since 2017. And some 6% of the UK’s community pharmacies have closed in the last 10 years. We cannot continue to rely on government funding that may never be sufficient, and have to look at ways we can proactively tackle the national pharmacy crisis.

 

Read more: 'Pharmacy wastelands’: Over 200 net closures in 2023 so far, DH admits

 

Digitisation, as seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, has an array of benefits that the pharmacy sector is in dire need of. The shift from manual to digital paperwork will vastly increase efficiency, not to mention reducing the amount of time pharmacists spend on phones. Furthermore, if chemists all provide online booking and prescription services, it’s not just pharmacists that will save time, but patients as well.

 

This would make primary care more accessible for the public, without coming at the cost of burnt out, overworked staff as looks to be the case with the implementation of Pharmacy First in its current iteration.

 

Read more: ‘Aiming for agreement in July’: CPE chief gives service negotiations update

 

The time saved for pharmacists could be used to tackle other operational challenges they currently face, particularly the issue of revenue. Currently, many pharmacists do not have sufficient time or the resources capable of conducting services such as the new medicine service (NMS). Furthermore, digitising processes will, in the long-term, save money for pharmacies as well as create new avenues for community outreach through digital marketing.

 

Call for change

 

Yet one of the areas labelled in the HSCC’s report as inadequate is the government’s commitment to digitising community pharmacies. Why is it the case that despite being a global leader in healthtech, we are failing to integrate these innovations into our national healthcare system?

 

It goes without saying that the government must take further action. Increased funding and training programmes to address workforce shortages and inflation are non-negotiable. But a national digital strategy that encourages the integration of healthtech into primary and secondary care is just as necessary.

 

Read more: A fifth of employee pharmacists report ‘dangerous’ levels of understaffing

 

As a pharmatech developer myself, it’s clear that tech bodies do not communicate with each other or healthcare services nearly enough, and work in a manner far too restrictive and siloed to meet their full potential.

 

Regulations and policies that encourage communication and integration, such as the standardisation of platforms, will play a role in fostering innovation and revitalising our health sector. This could be achieved through sharing open application programming interfaces (APIs) between the NHS and across healthtech companies, as well as improving access to funding for high-growth startups.

 

Read more: There’s an app for that: Can technology bring pharmacists closer to patients?

 

Let me point to fintech in the UK as an example where regulatory developments, such as open banking and regulatory sandboxes, helped evolve the sector into what it is today. Unicorns such as Revolut and Monzo have established the UK as a financial capital in the era of alternative finance.

 

There’s no reason that the same can’t happen with healthcare. Britain has the capability to become a digital leader. If the healthcare sector can embrace this, we have the opportunity to save our community pharmacy networks, and deliver Pharmacy First as envisioned by the government.

 

Save our pharmacies, and we can ensure we’ll save our people.

 

Santosh Sahu is the CEO of Charac