The government is “not there yet” on defining pharmacy’s role in the neighbourhood health hubs being set up as part of the NHS 10-year plan, NHSE’s director of community pharmacy yesterday (October 13) admitted.
Ali Sparke told delegates at the Pharmacy Show in Birmingham that there is “a lot of work still to be done” on establishing what the neighbourhood health centres set to be rolled out across England over the next decade will look like and “what that really means for each different part of the NHS”.
He said there is a “particularly important” conversation to be had to “cement and solidify pharmacy and pharmacy teams’ role” in the future of the NHS.
Read more: DH reveals locations of first 43 neighbourhood health hubs
“I think neighborhood health is probably one of the most important things that we will have to grapple with as [the 10-year plan] agenda evolves over the next few years,” Sparke told delegates.
“But we’re not there yet, so there’s a lot of work still to be done on defining what neighborhood health really means,” he added.
And he stressed that NHSE is “expecting all elements of primary care to be part of those discussions”.
Ambition vs reality
Sparke also acknowledged that the uplift in pharmacy funding announced in March does not mean that “every pharmacy in the country is now on a stable footing”.
“We’re not in that place, and for that reason, we have to make sure we measure the ambition that’s set out in the plan against the reality of what we can actually do within the sector,” he said.
It comes after the Department of Health and Social Care (DH) last month revealed the locations of the first neighbourhood health hubs to be rolled out around the country.
Read more: CPhO: Neighbourhood health will transform community pharmacy
It said at the time that “43 places across the country” will “benefit from improved care closer to home” as it begins the first wave of the rollout.
The new hubs will target areas “with the highest deprivation” and will initially focus on long-term conditions like “diabetes, arthritis, angina, high blood pressure, MS or epilepsy”, it added.
And it set out that local programme leads will use “general practice as the cornerstone” in drawing together a “neighbourhood health team” made up of a range of professions including pharmacists, community nurses, hospital doctors, social care workers, dentists and paramedics.
