The Health and Social Care Select Committee (HSCC) has warned health minister Karin Smyth that the government’s “desired shift towards neighbourhood health will not be delivered” if the community sector is not made more attractive.
The shift will not be possible if the community sector – which includes community pharmacy – “offers staff worse pay, fewer opportunities to advance their careers and make use of their skills and poorer training and supervision than the acute sector”, it said in a letter to Smyth.
The “upcoming” 10 Year Workforce Plan must contain “clear and concrete proposals to address these challenges” and make the community a “more attractive place” for staff to work, it added.
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Sent earlier this week (January 8), the letter drew on feedback it received during an evidence session in November on “delivering the neighbourhood health service”.
It highlighted that, among other things, witnesses raised concerns about a “lack of recognition in the value of community healthcare work”.
They also noted that there are “fewer opportunities for career progression” and to use their skills, compared with “acute settings”.
Utilise skills
Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) director for England Amandeep Doll also spoke at the session, touching on the importance of “commissioning prescribing services nationally”.
This would “allow pharmacists to ultilise all the skills they have” and “improve job satisfaction”, she argued.
She also noted that “too few clinical supervisors” in community settings “limited the availability of foundation training places”.
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HSCC chair Layla Moran MP said that there is “broad support for the principle of shifting NHS services back to neighbourhoods” but stressed that this move “could flounder if chronic problems aren’t tackled”.
The workforce plan “needs to contain concrete action to improve conditions for community-based clinicians and allied health professionals so that these careers will be properly valued and seen as more attractive”, she added.
