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Commissioning Framework For Health And Well-being - National Pharmacy Association Responds To Consultation

 

17-May-2007: The National Pharmacy Association (NPA) welcomes the general themes of this framework, including greater focus on preventing ill health and greater choice for patients in how they receive their health care. Community pharmacy is ideally suited to deliver on the prevention agenda. Developments such as independent prescribing and 'pharmacist with a special interest' will allow pharmacists to deliver more clinical services, increasing the choice of providers for patients. However, we were disappointed that there was very little mention of pharmacy within the document and an absence of examples of commissioned services involving pharmacists. Guidance on practice based commissioning encourages a plurality of provision and states that community pharmacy is one of those from whom services may be commissioned.

To help people take greater control of decisions about their health and care the NPA suggests that the Government could promote self-care, improve access to medicines and reduce GP and A+E visits by introducing a national minor ailments scheme, similar to that which already operates in Scotland.

The NPA believes that the Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment should feed into the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment. There is considerable potential for joint NHS-local authority commissioning of pharmacy services. Community pharmacies are well placed to support local authority goals by providing smoking cessation services, obesity clinics, reducing teenage pregnancies (through supply of emergency hormonal contraception) and supporting drug addicts in treatment programmes.

Gaining sufficient access to the electronic care record will be an essential requirement for new providers to run a service and there needs to be a clear entry point into the commissioning process so that new providers have an opportunity to contest service provision with established providers. There should be some mechanism to allow providers to hold commissioners to account if they are not offering support to new providers.

Source: Medical News Today