Growth in spend on pharmacy services outstrips primary care
Practice A 39 per cent increase in NHS spending on pharmacy services over the past five years has been welcomed by pharmacy leaders, who stressed that funding must be maintained to realise the sector's “huge potential” to minimise costs elsewhere in the health system
NHS spending on pharmacy services has increased 39 per cent over the past five years, far outstripping growth in overall primary care funding, a report by the Nuffield Trust has found.
PCTs increased their spend on pharmacy services – dispensing fees, enhanced and advanced services – from £1.5 billion to £2.1bn between 2006-07 and 2011-12, the Nuffield Trust's The anatomy of health spending 2011/12, published last week (March 5), revealed.
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"Patient-focused investment in community pharmacy has huge potential to minimise costs elsewhere in the system" Stephen Fishwick, Pharmacy Voice |
 More on pharmacy services
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And the NHS needed to continue to spend on pharmacy and understand the benefits of medicines optimisation, pharmacy leaders warned this week, because pharmacy had a "huge potential" to minimise costs elsewhere in the health system. Spend on primary care shot up between 2003 and 2006, following the new GP contract in 2004, which led to a 14 per cent increase in GP earnings. However, spending on GP services fell in real terms by an average of 0.2 per cent a year between 2007-08 and 2011-12. |
And overall spend on primary care remained static, increasing just 3 per cent since 2006 to £21.6bn in 2011-12, according to the report.
The report said the 2006 pharmacy contract, which introduced payments for additional pharmacy-based advanced and enhanced services, such as MURs, immunisations and smoking cessation services, led to the increase in pharmacy spend.
Pharmacy Voice stressed that the NHS must see pharmacy as an investment, not a cost. "Patient-focused investment in community pharmacy has huge potential to minimise costs elsewhere in the system, including the drugs budget and secondary care," said Pharmacy Voice spokesperson Stephen Fishwick.
"Once the NHS comes to truly understand the benefits of medicines optimisation, as distinct from medicines management, the conversation around investment will shift significantly in a positive direction," he added.
The NHS would need to continue investing in pharmacy to meet its challenge of making £20bn efficiency savings, argued Mike Hewitson, pharmacist at Beaminster Pharmacy, Dorset. He suggested pharmacists could take on more services in the community to drive cost savings for the NHS.
"It would be unthinkable to talk about public health without pharmacy," he told C+D. "I think the access that pharmacy provides for services such as EHC will start to be seen as increasingly attractive by commissioners in the new NHS environment."
Overall, the NHS had failed to achieve its aim of pushing funding from secondary care into primary care, the Nuffield Trust reported. Spend on secondary care as a proportion of overall spending on the NHS had increased in 2011-12, while primary care spend had fallen in real terms.
PCTs' spending on prescribing fell between 2006-07 and 2009-10, but increased to £8.4bn in 2010-11 and stood at £8.2bn last year, the report found.
It also found spending on healthcare had increased by an average of 3.9 per cent a year since 2003-04 and the Department of Health's overall financial position was "relatively healthy".
Read the Nuffield Trust's The anatomy of health spending 2011/12
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What other services could community pharmacy take on to drive cost savings for the NHS? Comment below or email us at [email protected] You can also find C+D on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook |
