Four months to decide the future of pharmacy

“The current government budget crisis could be turned from a threat facing community pharmacy into an opportunity”, Mark James, group managing director of AAH argues.

“The opportunity to influence will only exist between now and the Departmental Spending Review in October: after that influencing how and where the health budget is spent will become exponentially more difficult.

I suggest four things that need to happen urgently:

Firstly, the bodies which represent community pharmacy in England need to join forces under a single banner with an agreed set of messages.

Secondly, those bodies need to fund a joint professional lobbying campaign focused on influencing the outcome of the Spending Review.

As part of that, there has to be a clear focus on influencing Treasury Ministers and officials as ultimately they are the ones who will decide what gets funded and what does not.

Ironically perhaps, Treasury Ministers and officials may be more likely to listen to pharmacy’s case than their counterparts at the Department of Health.

A critical part of that campaign will be to produce a persuasive position paper which sets out the economic case for community pharmacy to play a stronger role in providing primary care services.

Let’s just accept that the benefits to patients are obvious: the argument will be won or lost on questions about cost savings and getting the same or better patient outcomes for less NHS spend.

There is lots of evidence out there – for example the recent 2020health think tank report which suggested that the Department of Health could save £1.6bn if minor ailments were to be commissioned through pharmacies - so let’s pull all the evidence together and present the government with a big £ that will get their attention. How much would the NHS save if it avoided the hugely costly secondary care interventions which result from medicines non-adherence?

Thirdly, we need a campaign which is not about getting the “support” of MPs: instead it is about getting them to act. Unless they are tabling questions, writing letters to the Minister, tabling Early Day Motions, initiating debates then there will be no pressure from the Commons on Health and Treasury Ministers to listen to pharmacy’s case.

Finally, we need an approach which does not provoke opposition from GPs. Not easy to achieve, but necessary nonetheless.

We need to shift the way people think about this debate. Instead of putting forward a justification for the Government to commission more services from pharmacy we need a campaign that says, given the current budget crisis and the pressures facing the NHS, how could the Government justify not commissioning more services from community pharmacy.

If you combine the contacts and resources of the pharmacy bodies and individual companies such as Lloydspharmacy, Boots etc you have a strong force: but it needs a shared direction and a joint plan of action.

If such a campaign could be launched I assure you we will back it with our lobbying contacts and resources. I am sure other wholesalers would do likewise”.