Health secretary Wes Streeting this week (November 13) introduced a new package of NHS reforms at the NHS Providers conference in Liverpool, including an NHS “league table”.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DH) said that “high-performing providers will be given greater freedom over funding and flexibility”.
“There is little incentive across the system to run budget surpluses as providers cannot benefit from it”, it added.
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The reforms “will reward top-performing providers and give them more capital and greater control over where to invest it”, it said.
But Community Pharmacy England (CPE) this week (November 13) said that any future “financial rewards” for “high-performing” health providers must “apply to community pharmacy too”.
CPE chief executive Janet Morrison stressed that “no other part of the NHS can match pharmacies when it comes to high performance”.
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Morrison highlighted that community pharmacies deliver “more than 69 million unfunded health consultations per year” and have seen a “350% increase in service demand” since 2017.
“In efficiency terms, community pharmacy is in a league of its own,” she said, but added that “time is running out if [the government] wants community pharmacies to play their full part” in the shift of NHS care from hospitals into the community.
“On the brink of collapse”
“Pharmacy businesses are continuing to fall over, with many more on the brink of collapse - they need urgent help,” Morrison said.
She stressed that community pharmacy’s “accessibility and efficiency is unrivalled across the health service”.
“The sector can lead the way in the reformed health service that the secretary of state wants to see, but only if it is put on a sustainable footing”, Morrison added.
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Meanwhile, MPs last week (November 5) urged the government to “go back to the drawing board” and “invest” in community pharmacies as concerns grow about the upcoming hike in employer National Insurance contributions.
And the National Pharmacy Association’s (NPA) yesterday revealed that its ballot – protesting ongoing NHS funding delays for pharmacies – received near unanimous support in favour of collective action.