Pharmacy minister Stephen Kinnock last week (July 14) stressed that the government is “committed” to rolling out community pharmacy prescribing services.
“We are committed to expanding the role of pharmacies and to better utilising the skills of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians,” he said.
“That includes making prescribing part of the services delivered by community pharmacists,” he added.
Read more: DH: Pharmacist prescribing service ‘central’ to relieving hospital pressure
The comment came in a written response to a parliamentary question from Liberal Democrat MP for North Shropshire Helen Morgan.
Morgan had asked whether the Department of Health and Social Care (DH) plans to “commission new services from community pharmacy in the context of changes to supervision”.
But Kinnock noted that “future decisions on service arrangements for community pharmacies beyond 2025/26 are subject to the current spending review”, adding that the DH will consult Community Pharmacy England (CPE) on “any proposed changes”.
“A good aspiration”
It comes after the Labour Party manifesto – launched last June – vowed to grant “more pharmacists independent prescribing rights where clinically appropriate” to ease “pressure” on GP surgeries.
It said at the time that a Labour government would see the introduction of a “community pharmacist prescribing service” that would improve patients’ “access to services and treatment through new routes”.
And health minister Karin Smyth said last July that the service could be “central” to increasing secondary care capacity.
Read more: Labour promises ‘community pharmacist prescribing service’
But Labour MP for North Somerset and pharmacist Sadik Al-Hassan said in March that while he believes a community pharmacist prescribing service is “a good aspiration”, he does “not think we can do it this year”.
It is “entirely possible” for the new service to begin in “two or three years”, he said at the time, adding that the proposed service is “deliverable” but is “limited by what we do currently”.
Read more: Al-Hassan: Pharmacy prescribing service ‘two or three years’ away
Meanwhile, the DH last week finally published long-awaited plans to reform community pharmacy supervision, with changes due to come into force by the end of this year.
It said that the measures “will help transition community pharmacy from being largely focused on dispensing medicines to becoming integral to the neighbourhood health service” – as set out in the NHS 10-year plan earlier this month.
The reforms have been met with a mixed reaction from the sector, with pharmacy bodies and pharmacy technicians broadly in favour but “many individual pharmacists” against them.
