The Department of Health and Social Care (DH) today (July 3) revealed its highly anticipated 10-year plan for the NHS in England.
It said that pharmacies will have a “vital role” in the new “neighbourhood health service” – announced yesterday – “bringing health to the heart of the high street”.
“Over the next five years, we will transition community pharmacy from being focused largely on dispensing medicines to becoming integral to the neighbourhood health service, offering more clinical services,” it revealed.
Read more: Pharmacy bodies react to Streeting’s 10-year plan
This will include an increased role in the management of long-term conditions, complex medication regimes, and treatment of obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol as community pharmacists “increasingly become able to independently prescribe”, it said.
“As well as improving patient choice and convenience, there is now strong evidence that a bigger role for pharmacy can deliver efficiencies and support financial sustainability,” it added.
Single patient record
The plan also revealed that pharmacies will be given “a bigger role in prevention by expanding their role in vaccine delivery and in screening for risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes”.
Read more: DH to launch pharmacist-staffed ‘neighbourhood health services’
And it said that “over time”, community pharmacies will be “securely joined up to the single patient record”.
This will help them “provide a seamless service” and will “give GPs sight of patient management”, it added.
Meanwhile, neighbourhood services “will look different” across the country, as they will be “designed in a way that reflects the specific needs of local populations”, the plan said.
Read more: Primary care leaders warn ‘little capacity’ for community care shift
“While we will be clear on the outcomes we expect, we will give significant licence to tailor the approach to local need” with a “consistent” focus on “personalised, coordinated care”, it added.
The DH yesterday set out that it will roll out new “neighbourhood health centres” open evenings and weekends and staffed by teams including doctors, nurses and pharmacists.
However, it remains unclear how many of these centres will be opened, where they will be located and when they will be rolled out.
Check the C+D site for the latest on this developing story
