An NHS company CEO has said community pharmacy is a “vital component” of the government’s neighbourhood health models.
At a Westminster conference on neighbourhood health held today, C+D asked about the role community pharmacies could play, given their access to communities and capacity to aid in preventative care.
Read more: GP says neighbourhood health needs ‘parity between professions’
Community Health Partnerships CEO Wendy Farrington-Chadd responded that the sector is “absolutely vital”.
She said that though community pharmacy “is facing challenges at the moment”, it is a “vital component part” of neighbourhood health.
Read more: Proposed neighbourhood health contracts ‘too centred on GPs’
“I think it’s absolutely key. I would agree with the points you make,” she added.
The interaction was the only reference to pharmacy throughout the conference, which chiefly covered general practice and primary care more broadly.
Not an “unlimited reservoir”
Health Foundation policy fellow Nina Hemmings warned that there is an “overriding risk that neighbourhood health becomes essentially a vehicle for managing hospital demand, rather than genuine and place-based approach to improving health”.
And National Association of Primary Care clinical chair Andy Brooks said that “care has drifted too far towards a series of unconnected transactions”, becoming “frustrating for patients, unsatisfying for professionals and often inefficient for the system”.
He said primary care “shouldn’t be treated as an unlimited reservoir into which other services can transfer work.
Read more: Pharmacy must be ‘strengthened’ before neighbourhood care shift
“We don’t want a left shift to turn into a left shaft, either.”
It comes after GP Jagan John, speaking at the Pharmacy Show last month, called for “parity between professions” between GPs and pharmacists for the government’s neighbourhood health plans to work.
And it follows the Royal College of Pharmacy saying in September that proposals on neighbourhood health contracting models are “too centred on general practice and NHS providers”.
