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Health secretary Sajid Javid vouches support for a "pharmacy first" model of care for minor illnesses, to help clear the backlog of NHS care arising due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Speaking at the National Pharmacy Association's (NPA) centenary dinner in central London on Wednesday (November 24), Javid said he wanted to "go further" than existing services like the NHS Community Pharmacist Consultation Service, to make it "quicker and easier" for people to access primary care. He said: "I want to see how much further we can go. That's one of the reasons why we're working up plans for a pharmacy first model in England that will direct more patients directly to pharmacies without having to go to see their GPs. This will help us to beat the backlog and make sure that even more people can benefit from (pharmacists') brilliant advice and care." Expressing his commitment to transform every aspect of health and care in the country he said that community pharmacies should be "at the very heart of primary care - not just treating people but preventing people from becoming patients in the first place."

Jackie Giltrow and Jose Moss have been appointed as Chair and Vice-Chair of the Community Pharmacy Patient Safety group, respectively, bringing with them a wealth of experience and expertise in pharmacy practice. Supported by the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) and hosted by the Company Chemists' Association (CCA), the CPPSG serves as a collaborative platform for large community pharmacy organisations to openly share and learn from each other's experiences. A CPPSG Chair now, Jackie Giltrow, Clinical Governance Lead at Paydens Limited is a seasoned pharmacist and expert in risk management and patient safety. With nine years of experience as a member of the CPPSG, Giltrow's appointment represents a continuation of her longstanding dedication to advancing patient safety initiatives within community pharmacy settings.

Almost nine in ten community pharmacists in England say they have patients who sometimes go without prescription medicines because they cannot afford the prescription charge levied by the government. Sixty-eight per cent of pharmacists in a National Pharmacy Association (NPA) survey, conducted via email in June 2022, said this has become more frequent in the past year - suggesting that the rising cost of living could be leading more people to miss out on vital medicines. While prescription charge does not apply in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, in England an NHS patients needs to pay £9.35 per item. For patients who need multiples medicines the cost could be exponential and virtually unaffordable amid rising inflation and higher cost of living. The survey found that 89 per cent of pharmacies in England have patients who sometimes go without prescription medicines due to cost. For most pharmacists (74 per cent) this happens one to five times a week. Fifteen per cent said they see such patients from six to 20 times a week.

Two more independent community pharmacists have been appointed to the UK Commission on Pharmacy Professional Leadership. NPA board member Reena Barai and Sheelin McKeagney from Lurgan in Northern Ireland will join 25 other commission members, including Ash Soni who was the only practising community pharmacist on the initial list published in June. Welcoming the announcement, the National Pharmacy Association chief executive, Mark Lyonette, said: "To their great credit, the co-chairs of the commission and the UK's chief pharmaceutical officers have listened to our request for more community pharmacy presence on the commission. They have acted swiftly to achieve a better balance in its membership and we thank them for responding to our representations. "Around 70 per cent of pharmacists practice in the community. With more voices from community pharmacy within the leadership commission, there is a greater sense that the profession as a whole will be able to own the final recommendations when they are ultimately made."

Community pharmacy could play an important role in proactive detection of heart valve disease (HVD), which remains under-recognised and under-detected in England, suggested a new report published by Wilmington Healthcare. Pharmacy bodies, including Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS), National Pharmacy Association (NPA) and Community Pharmacy England (CPE), have also endorsed the report, which encourages Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) to consider the innovative approach of detecting HVD with the help of community pharmacists. Despite HVD detection being a priority listed in the NHS Long Term Plan, a large number of people with HVD remained undiagnosed and untreated in the country due to lack of awareness of the disease prevalence. In June 2022, a pilot study was launched in Farnborough Primary Care Network (PCN), Hampshire, to evaluate the feasibility of using e-stethoscopes (digital auscultation) to detect this heart condition by a community pharmacist.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society's (RPS) second roundtable on workforce wellbeing resulted in a series of collaborative actions to address pharmacy professionals' mental health and wellbeing challenges. The roundtable brought together key stakeholders from the pharmacy sector, including organisations like the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), Community Pharmacy England (CPE), the National Pharmacy Association (NPA), and the profession's independent charity Pharmacist Support (PS). A report detailing the outcomes of the meeting was published on Friday, highlighting the key areas of discussion and the agreed-upon actions by the participants. During the roundtable, participants discussed the importance of understanding the workforce demographics, both nationally and locally, and using data to address wellbeing issues effectively. They also emphasised the need for using supportive standards set by the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) quality statement to support and empower pharmacists' wellbeing positively.

The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee announced last week that it is in discussions with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England about relieving capacity pressures, such as a relaxation of pharmacy opening hours requirements. PSNC is also scheduling webinars to talk with contactors about the steps they might be willing to take in future, to cut costs, should emergency financial relief fail to materialise. The pharmacy regulator reported that many of its members felt that it was no longer tenable for pharmacies to keep offering all of the free and non-core services to patients that they would like to, and that all contractors should consider what steps they could take to try to safeguard their businesses and their core services for patients. PSNC is also keen to talk to contractors about their current situation and the steps they might be willing to take in future, should emergency relief not be forthcoming.

With the government gearing up and pushing community pharmacies in England to adopt the hub and spoke dispensing model, stakeholders of the sector and industry leaders analyse the pros and cons related to the new concept. The model rose to prominence in 2015 in community pharmacy and the medicine supply chain in the UK, and has undergone a few consultations and reviews at the professional and governmental level since then. From a broader perspective, the industry agrees that the model will bring in efficiency to the system, much needed amid community pharmacy's flat funding settlement in England, at the same time highlighting some real challenges. The National Pharmacy Association (NPA) has so far released three reports on this matter and a review of the challenges and enablers of the hub and spoke in the UK in 2016. Besides, a review of international evidence and the report of a roundtable meeting was brought together in the supply chain with government and regulators in early 2020.

His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales is to host a reception at St James's Palace in early May to celebrate exemplary work of community pharmacist during the Coronavirus pandemic. Up to 200 community pharmacists have been invited by Prince Charles to the event organised to "celebrate community pharmacists", which commences at 5:30pm on Wednesday, May 4 at the London residence of the Prince of Wales. The invitation comes in less than six months after Prince Charles praised community pharmacists for their efforts during the Covid-19 pandemic in a video message sent to the National Pharmacy Association (NPA)'s centenary dinner at Apothecaries' Hall in central London in November last year. He said throughout the pandemic pharmacy teams' "commitment to patient care has never wavered, despite the many enormous pressures you have faced. "During this pandemic period, we have learned, as never before, that pharmacies are one of those vital places where science and society meet. Crucially, they are about people and places, not just pills."

The Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) provide an opportunity to break the silo mentality in the health and care sector, National Pharmacy Association (NPA) chair Andrew Lane told MPs. While giving evidence to the Health and Social Care Select Committee on 6 December about the effectiveness of ICSs, Lane also poured cold water on newspaper reports that community pharmacists will be drafted in to break the NHS strike, as he reiterated the call for a "properly costed and funded environment." "We've been in different silos historically and ICSs are an opportunity to pull all systems together for the benefit of patients," he told committee members. Lane pointed to dementia-trained pharmacy delivery drivers and the Discharge Medicines Service as instances where the influence of community pharmacy already stretches beyond primary care into hospitals and social care. "We've seen pharmacists prescribe and get UTIs off doctors' desks, so we are starting to release capacity [in the system] and we're on that clinical journey. We welcome that, but it has to be with the right level of funding," he added.

It's time for pharmacists to get their technology forecasting hats on and be selective in choosing digital technologies, commented Prof James Woudhuysen, of London South Bank University, at the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) Conference, Pharmacy Odyssey, held on Thursday (13 October). In a session on 'Healthcare in tomorrow's digital environment', hosted by Fergus Walsh, Prof Woudhuysen opined that digitisation has its merit, but it's quite tricky, and slower than we imagine. "Mechanisation has a digital component that we can look to as a way out of the gloom of the moment. And in dispensing, labelling, prescribing, and many other features of the conventional retail pharmacist, there's a lot that could be done for productivity and automation," he said. Replying to a question on 'where are we at the digital front now and where can it go', Woudhuysen replied: "It's taken 20 years for the electronic prescription. It was Tony Blair, who wanted every prescription electronic. The mishaps on repeat prescriptions and all the rest of it are still quite intense. So, we need to remember that electronics is only as clever as software and then human input into it. There're still many mistakes.

A roundtable organised by National Pharmacists Association (NPA) discussed how an enhanced role of community pharmacies could help people with obesity. Seven action points were recommended by the delegates at the virtual event which took place on March 31, in collaboration with Novo Nordisk. It was chaired by Professor Maggie Rae, president of the Faculty of Public Health and featured representatives from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, Royal Society for Public Health, Patients Association, UK Health Security Agency, Diabetes UK and NHS England. The roundtable also heard testimony from a parent of a young adult living with obesity and a presentation of the personal experience of someone living with the condition by Sarah Le Brocq, director of campaign group, All About Obesity.

The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) will be hosting a Parliamentary drop-in event for MPs on Monday (14 November). "The event will last for roughly two hours, during which MPs will have the opportunity to drop-in and have their blood pressure measured by a fully qualified pharmacist," said the committee. It added: "This event will be a great opportunity to talk to MPs from across the political spectrum about the incredible work pharmacies are doing up and down the country, to demonstrate the Hypertension Case-Finding Service and to discuss the frontline role pharmacists play in delivering vital services and free, expert advice." The other community pharmacy bodies, including the National Pharmacy Association (NPA), the Company Chemists' Association (CCA) and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) will also be present on the day, providing the sector with a valuable chance to present a united front on the big issues facing contractors throughout the country.

Eighty-one per cent of the National Pharmacy Association cohort of trainee pharmacists passed the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC)'s common registration assessment which took place in June. The NPA's team of learning and development pharmacists helped students prepare for the assessment with study days and mock exams. Celebrating the success of trainee pharmacists, it said: "The 81 per cent NPA pass rate reflected the comprehensive blended learning experience delivered by the NPA's team of learning and development pharmacists and that we were able to resume face-to-face study days for this cohort after the restrictions of lockdowns." Last month, the GPhC and Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland (PSNI) published result of the common registration assessment for pharmacists with an overall pass rate of 80 per cent. A total of 2,697 candidates sat the registration assessment in four countries on 29 June and 2,147 candidates passed the assessment.

The European Commission is prepared to rewrite European Union law on medicines to ensure stable supply of generic and life-saving medicines in Northern Ireland. In a press statement issued on Friday (Dec 17), the commission said it put forward a package of measures to ensure the continued long-term supply of medicines from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. In the context of the Northern Ireland Protocol, this means that the same medicines will continue to be available at the same time across the United Kingdom. Commenting on the news, policy manager at the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) Helga Mangion said: "We are encouraged by the EU's statement on medicines availability in Northern Ireland, though of course we await the final outcome of the negotiations. We have been talking to the government, the MHRA and other stakeholders about these issues for months, highlighting the concerns of our members in Northern Ireland."