This year’s PharmacyForum in Spain featured discussions on the state and future of community pharmacy, with a general sense from the contractors attending that there are more opportunities for the sector to take on.
Innovation was a topic that cropped up a lot, with Sartoretto Verna pharmacy design expert Fiona Sartoretto Verna revealing how some pharmacies she has worked with have now started to operate using memberships to fit the services-based model.
Contractors also spoke about how hub and spoke dispensing has helped them to “free up staff to maximise on services”, rather than just simply cutting staff hours.
Read more: CPE ‘not really a negotiating committee’, says NPA chief exec
But IPA board member Ian Strachan brought some realism to talk of innovation: “Pharmacy is in crisis and I don’t believe you can innovate the way out of it,” he said.
And after the National Pharmacy Association’s (NPA) chief executive Henry Gregg revealed that he sees Community Pharmacy England (CPE) as more of “a distribution committee” than a negotiator, he also shared some of the sobering insights from his meetings with contractors around the UK.
“I speak to a lot and one last week said to me, ‘I had a £200,000 pension and had to cash it in and put it all in my business’,” he said. “It’s really tough out there.”
Mexican coke
During a discussion about how to better lobby the government for change, Gregg cited how opportunism helped to push through the smoking ban under Rishi Sunak’s premiership - but he also revealed the former prime minister’s passion for fizzy drinks.
“He collects Coca-Cola from different parts of the world!” he said. “He gets Mexican Coca-Cola imported because it’s got sugar cane in it, not fructose.”
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Gregg also shared his thoughts on the new health secretary James Murray, who he described as “a bit of a policy wonk” and “very much a Treasury kind of person”.
This will make Murray more responsive to “economic figures on how we can save the system money”, he said.
“But who knows how long the current government will stay in place? They need to get the contract through as soon as possible because there will be political instability.”
IPs
Community Pharmacy North East London chief executive Shilpa Shah said that to prepare for the new cohort of independent prescribers (IPs) coming in, those still practicing should take an IP course to “lead by example”.
“Hopefully, if you can get a GP colleague near you to be your designated prescribing practitioner (DPP), then that builds that relationship,” she said.
“I know we’ve got lots of people qualifying as IPs this July. Are we ready for them to start prescribing straight away? No. Let’s use the rest of this year to get as many legacy pharmacists trained to become IPs as possible.”
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Shah also suggested that the “safest way” to implement independent prescribing in the community would be to have it as an add-on to services such as Pharmacy First.
“It’s going to be the safest [way] for pharmacists to feel comfortable, because it’s minor illness. It’s quite an easy one to implement into the trainee pharmacist year as well.”
Workforce
During the community pharmacy roundtable discussion, one attendee highlighted the need to make the sector attractive in order to retain staff.
“The challenge is, how do we quickly train technicians? Because most of our community pharmacy technicians get head-hunted by the NHS and get better pay.”
Shah called for funding for a second part-time or full -time pharmacist, or for a pharmacy technician, to help support the workload with more services.
Read more: Community pharmacist numbers fell by 10% last year, survey finds
“You’re starting a service, it’s not making enough money for you to employ more staff, so then you’re running the service badly because you’re trying to do a million things,” she said.
“It’s really difficult at the moment.”
But while ongoing negotiations on a long overdue funding contract have left the sector feeling uncertain, Skills4Group founder Amerjit Singh had some uplifting words for contractors.
Read more: Gaps in supervision and training could ‘undermine’ IPs, trust warns
“When I first started 20-odd years ago, if you had a 10,000-item business, you were singing,” he said. “Now, you’ve got to layer it up. It’s a business within a business.”
“I’m standing in a room of people who have eight- or nine-figure businesses. The future of pharmacy isn’t our next contract, it’s the people. I see entrepreneurs.”
It comes after property brokers Christie & Co told PharmacyForum delegates that the pharmacy market is “strong” and healthier than other business markets.
