AAH comment on NHS White Paper

We now need to see much greater clarity and detail about what exactly the proposals which relate to community pharmacy will mean in practice. What will "payment for performance" and "transparency in NHS pricing and payments" actually mean? Is that code for doing more, but for less money? Or could it be a real commitment to shifting funding towards the provision of patient services as we have seen happen in Scotland in recent years.
 
If it is the latter, and I hope that will be the case, then we could see the proposed NHS Commissioning Board commissioning nationally available services such as adherence programmes, diabetes testing, minor ailments etc rather than the current patchy PCT driven postcode lottery provision. That would be a huge step forward providing it is accompanied by adequate funding.
 
I hope Ministers and officials recognise that funding not only needs to be performance related and transparent, it also needs to fairly reward the professional contribution of pharmacists and be sufficient to sustain the community pharmacy network.