The first community pharmacy contractual framework (CPCF) national campaign topic for 2025/26 will “promote Pharmacy First to the public”, CPE yesterday (September 1) revealed.
Under the new pharmacy funding deal announced in March, it was agreed that pharmacy owners would have to participate in two national health campaigns and two local health campaigns in 2025/26 - “two fewer campaigns than is generally required”, CPE said.
Read more: Revealed: GP referrals to Pharmacy First down by quarter in a year
It added that the topic has now been agreed with NHS England (NHSE) and the Department of Health and Social Care (DH) and is “expected to run later in 2025”.
The negotiator stressed that all pharmacies must engage in the campaign, which will “take place alongside an NHSE advertising campaign promoting Pharmacy First to the public”.
Read more: Pharmacy First under ‘evaluation’ as DH expects to ‘fully utilise’ funds
It added that further details on how pharmacy owners must take part “will be published shortly”.
In the previous two years, pharmacies were not required to participate in any health campaigns, but in 2022/23, contractors took part in one national health campaign on weight management.
“Makes absolute sense”
CPE director of NHS services Alastair Buxton told C+D that the pharmacy campaign “makes absolute sense”.
He stressed that the Pharmacy First service is “important” for the sector and its “ongoing promotion to the public is of critical importance to its success”.
“It makes absolute sense to combine forces with the wider NHS marketing campaign ahead of the busy winter season when the service is likely to be of most value to patients struggling to access other parts of the healthcare system,” he said.
Campaign chaos
The new Pharmacy First campaign comes after a Healthwatch poll on the service revealed in June that less than half of respondents (44%) had visited their pharmacy for help with one of the conditions it covers in the last year.
It showed that nearly three in ten (29%) people who said they were “unlikely to use pharmacy” for the seven conditions “were not aware that pharmacies can provide treatment and advice for them”.
Read more: Just 13% of two-year Pharmacy First budget spent in 8 months
And in March, an NHS official revealed that they were “not aware” of further plans to publicise the Pharmacy First service.
NHSE relaunched its national Pharmacy First marketing campaign in November, with just “minor revisions” to the original material published several months before.
At the time, CPE called for it to be part of a “much bigger ongoing public awareness campaign” amid concerns about the way the service had been promoted.
Read more: NHSE relaunches Pharmacy First marketing campaign with ‘minor revisions’
In August last year, CPE said the NHS needed to be “pulling its socks up” when it came to promoting Pharmacy First – branding the campaign previously put out by NHSE as “not very effective”.
Responding to the comments, an NHS spokesperson told C+D at the time that the NHS had “run an extensive advertising campaign” for the service, including “video on demand, online video, social media and poster sites in public spaces”.
Read more: ‘Pull your socks up!’ CPE slams new ‘one-off’ Pharmacy First media campaign
NHSE’s original Pharmacy First media campaign was launched in February last year and was met with criticism from the outset.
CPE warned the following month that the service’s eligibility criteria needed clarifying after reports of patients “yelling and throwing items” at pharmacists, while other sector leaders pointed to data indicating “little to no impact” from the campaign on public awareness of the service.
