The Northern Ireland Department of Health (DH) unveiled plans for pharmacies to treat six new conditions, offer two new services and run various pilots in its community pharmacy strategic plan published this week (May 7).
The new services are set to be introduced “in the period up to 2030” – “subject to securing the necessary funding”, the document said.
The government laid out plans to add “sore throat, shingles, impetigo, sinusitis, earache and infected insect bite” to NI’s Pharmacy First service – increasing the number of common conditions treated by pharmacies from 13 to 19.
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It added that the Pharmacy First service “will expand” to “increasingly embed diagnostics, independent prescribing and/or the use of patient group directions (PGDs)”.
The DH also announced that it is set to introduce a “new hypertension detection service” and “hospital discharge medicines service”.
“The care home service will be further developed to establish clinical patient-centred roles for community pharmacists,” it added.
Pilots set for take-off
The DH also revealed plans to commission various new pharmacy pilots.
It announced local pilots to “inform the redesign of needle exchange and opiate substitution services (OST)” and to “enhance access” to “Hepatitis C, HIV treatments and naloxone”.
Read more: Northern Ireland launches pharmacy sore throat and expanded UTI services
“Other pilots will include an acute cough assessment service, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) packs and provision of long-term contraception,” it added.
Commenting on the plan, chief pharmaceutical officer (CPhO) for Northern Ireland Professor Cathy Harrison said that “this vision expands the trusted role that community pharmacies have in supplying medicines” by offering “more clinical services that utilise the skills of community pharmacy teams”.
“Bold and forward-looking”
Today (May 9), Numark chair Professor Harry McQuillan told C+D that he was “delighted to see the release of Northern Ireland’s community pharmacy strategic plan”.
“It is particularly pleasing to see a vision specific to the community pharmacy sector with a bold and forward-looking approach,” he added.
He said that “the ambitions to fully realise the potential of community pharmacy services…are to be championed”.
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“I look forward to working with all stakeholders over the coming years to bring the intended population health and community pharmacy benefits to fruition,” he added.
Professor McQuillan joined Numark, a membership body that includes a large number of community pharmacies in Northern Ireland, in February after serving as chief executive of Community Pharmacy Scotland (CPS) for more than 17 years.
Read more: Northern Ireland CPhO encourages patients to use Pharmacy First service
Meanwhile, Northern Ireland’s health minister last month said he would increase the margin retained by pharmacies by £5 million.
But he added that this increase is “on [the] condition” that Community Pharmacy Northern Ireland (CPNI) agrees to changes with the margin survey.
And the government announced in October that the country would spend nearly £700,000 to roll out two pharmacy services to prepare for the coming winter – a pharmacy sore throat service and expanded urinary tract infection (UTI) service.
