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The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) has rejected Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England's proposal on price concessions reform and relief measures to ease pressure on pharmacies. The Committee called the proposal 'insufficient' to meet the sector's needs considering the impact of the current crisis, reflecting on the economic pressures that accelerated through the autumn and winter. The Ministers and other decision-makers have shown their interest in the potential role of community pharmacy, particularly in using a Pharmacy First approach and making use of PGDs and the skills of independent prescribers. But the Committee had made clear to them that without new money this is all a pipedream. "We need an urgent injection of funds into the sector, otherwise we will continue to see a degradation of services and eventual collapse of the network. The Committee is clear that there is no further place for warm words while pharmacy collapses," said PSNC. The Committee reflected that the 5-year CPCF agreement had been based on working together to create the capacity and context necessary to deliver the shift towards greater service delivery. Not only has that capacity-release not happened due to slow progress by Government, but pharmacies have also been burdened with these additional, and insurmountable, challenges.

The regulators have reduced the notice periods for change to supplementary opening hours for community pharmacy contractors from 1 October 2022. Following the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC)'s discussions with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England as part of Year 4 negotiations, it has been agreed that the required notice periods for changes to supplementary opening hours will reduce to five weeks. Community pharmacy contractors who want to change their supplementary opening hours are required by their terms of service to notify NHS England. "If a contractor wants to increase supplementary opening hours at the pharmacy, this can be done with no notice - but notification of the change must still be given to NHS England," said PSNC. "To decrease supplementary opening hours at the pharmacy, at least five weeks' notice must be given to NHS England prior to implementing the change."

The national pharmacy bodies has created 'Save Our Pharmacies' campaign website to give new focus to calls for fair pharmacy funding in England. The newly launched site contains key messages for public, politicians and stakeholders, and hosts campaign resources to be used by pharmacy teams. The pharmacy bodies encourage members of the public and pharmacy teams to show their support for the campaign on social media, as well as signing the petition and contacting their local MPs about fair funding. A further resource in the form of a window poster is being printed and will shortly be mailed out to all community pharmacies in England. It is the latest output of a joint programme of work being coordinated by PSNC, CCA, AIM and the NPA.

Majority of the pharmacies are facing aggression from patients due to the medicine supply chain issue, a PSNC survey has revealed. The Pharmacy Pressures Survey by the trade body has seen nearly 83 per cent of pharmacies reporting a significant increase in medicine supply issues in the past year, leading to extra work and additional stress for staff. The survey of over 5,000 pharmacy premises and 1,000 pharmacy team members in England took place in early 2022. Two-thirds of respondents said that medicines supply chain issues are a daily occurrence, with 97 per cent reporting that this led to frustration from patients. "The results of PSNC's Pressures Survey make distressing reading for anybody in the sector - they tell a story of teams under immense pressures, and of businesses at crisis point," said Janet Morrison, PSNC chief executive.

The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) has confirmed that the community pharmacy contractors are 'not required' to undertake a contractor-chosen or an NHS England determined clinical audit in 2023/24. "A clinical audit on anticoagulants is included in the Pharmacy Quality Scheme (PQS) 2023/24. If contractors choose to not participate in PQS, and therefore do not complete the anticoagulant clinical audit, there is still no requirement to complete two clinical audits in 2023/24," said PSNC. "The Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England have also committed to consider, during 2023/24, the removal of the requirement for a contractor-chosen clinical audit permanently."

As 19th September has been declared a bank holiday for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's state funeral, the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) has advised that there is a need for some pharmacies to remain open for public interest. NHS England has discussed with PSNC how this will impact community pharmacy and is in the process of sending a letter to all contractors, setting out the above and requesting that they work with their local NHS England team to help plan arrangements for pharmaceutical provision in the area on the 19th of September. In considering arrangements for the 19th, contractors are encouraged to: Consider the needs of their patients, including any specific clinical needs, since patients have little time to prepare. In particular, patients who collect controlled drugs in instalments should be considered, noting the use of approved Home Office wording on prescriptions (see further information on our Controlled Drug prescription forms webpage). Consider staff availability. It is likely that many schools and childcare settings will close, affecting childcare arrangements.

Two dozen parliamentarians from across the political spectrum have called on the prime minister to act as a wave of pharmacy closures in recent years has threatened to spiral out of control. A letter to the prime minister signed by 24 MPs and peers has warned that worse could be yet to come after "spiralling business costs" and "year after year of real terms funding cuts" have led to hundreds of pharmacy closures. New data from the PSNC shows that over 639 local pharmacies have been lost in England since 2016. "This is the equivalent to just short of one pharmacy closure per constituency", the cross-party group warned. The letter comes as MPs came together at a parliamentary summit to call for pharmacies to be embraced as a "game-changer" for tackling healthcare backlogs and taking pressure off other areas of the NHS. A 'Future of Pharmacy' event was attended by 53 parliamentarians on July 5 in the Palace of Westminster. At the event parliamentarians heard directly from frontline pharmacists and representatives of pharmacy bodies where a map of constituency-specific pharmacy numbers was also unveiled, with details of the number of pharmacy closures in MPs' local area.

NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSE&I), in association with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) and the Association of Pharmacy Technicians UK (APTUK), has published its first inclusive pharmacy practice (IPP) bulletin, with an overarching ambition "to make community pharmacy a more inclusive environment for all pharmacy professionals". The IPP programme will take practical steps to improve the awareness and understanding at all levels of different cultural beliefs and attitudes, according to the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC). As a member of the IPP Improving Practice and Engagement Group, PSNC has contributed to this issue of the Bulletin, which focuses on how pharmacy professionals can help to reduce health inequalities via the detection and prevention of cardiovascular diseases. The IPP programme, of which the Bulletin forms a part, aims to engage with local communities to help improve their health and reduce inequalities in care - particularly among those from ethnically diverse and disadvantaged backgrounds.

The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) has notified that it is now mandatory to attend face-to-face training for both injection technique and basic life support training periodically for pharmacists and other vaccinators providing the annual flu vaccination service. "Community pharmacy contractors are required to demonstrate that all vaccinators, including pharmacists, providing the flu vaccination service in their pharmacy have the skills needed to do so," said PSNC. Prior to this change, pharmacists and other vaccinators needed to undertake a refresher face-to-face training for both injection technique and basic life support, including administration of adrenaline, every three years. Vaccinator needs to evidence competence PSNC said: "Contractors and vaccinators will now need to consider when it would be appropriate to attend refresher training or if ongoing competence of an individual vaccinator can be evidenced, without the need for face-to-face training. "An individual's continued competence may be influenced by their prior experience vaccinating patients, including the overall number of vaccines administered and the regularity with which they administer vaccines."

Along with pharmacists, pharmacy technicians in England are now able to perform blood pressure checks as part of the Hypertension Case-Finding Service and deliver the Smoking Cessation Service (SCS). The government has amended Drug Tariff and includes the amendments to The Pharmaceutical Services (Advanced and Enhanced Services) (Amendment) (England) Directions 2023. Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) said: "The service specifications for both services are currently going through NHS England's publication process; when these are published PSNC will alert contractors through their normal communication channels. PSNC resources for both of these services are also currently being updated."

The National Pharmacy Association (NPA) has warned of multi-million financial hit for community pharmacies, while the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) has renewed its calls for urgent financial support amid a looming energy bill crisis. NPA board member, Olivier Picard, this week shared a screenshot of his estimated electricity bill on WhatsApp groups. Upon expiration of his current arrangements, in October, his electricity bill could rise from its current £1,821 for one pharmacy to an estimated £6,914 - a near fourfold increase. Piccard said: "This is an eye-watering rise in costs for my own pharmacies and adds to the intense financial pressure we're already under. My standing charges will multiply by 10 and the overall cost to each pharmacy amounts to about £5,000." His comments come just ahead of an NPA-commissioned report into pharmacy inflation which will provide an analysis of inflationary costs pressing on the community pharmacy sector, from utilities and workforce to medicines purchasing.

The health secretary, Steve Barclay was asked over the delay of 'Pharmacy First' model in England that was proposed by the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) last year, at the Health Committee evidence session held on Tuesday (31 January). Taiwo Owatemi MP (Chair of the Pharmacy APPG) asked whether he was adhering to his statutory responsibility to ensure continued access to medicines and cited the CCA's closures in areas of deprivation research. Barclay replied that the government is 'investing more'. He said, "We put an extra 100 million on top of the 2.6 billion a year we commit to community pharmacy to expand the range of clinical services. We've got over 2 million patients that have been referred to community pharmacy from NHS." He further added: "One of the issues I'm very keen on is to explore what more we can do in pharmacy not least given the pressures on GP and the opportunity to look at what it is currently people go to GPS for where potentially the risk to do more at the pharmacy and we're already doing that."

The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) has called the 'new general practice contract' which was imposed by NHS England on Monday (6 March) as 'simply unreasonable'. The imposition of new contract followed a failed talk of British Medical Association (BMA)'s with the negotiator. The association's main issue with the contract is the lack of further funding beyond that agreed in 2019 as part of the five-year deal. PSNC Chief Executive Janet Morrison said: "The breakdown in GP contract negotiations for the second year running is another blow for primary care. The verdict of the GP negotiators is that the demands being made of doctors by Government and the NHS are simply unreasonable." "Community pharmacy is being treated with the same disregard: too much is being asked of us, with far too little funding available." The committee has been raising the issue and challenges faced by the community pharmacists with the government. The government is asking pharmacies to do more by taking giving additional services but the committee is of view with no extra funding the community pharmacies will collapse.

The National Pharmacy Association (NPA) is calling on NHS England and its member to pause and reflect before further implementing the pharmacy contraception service. NPA board met on Tuesday (25 April) to discuss the Pharmacy Contraception Service and the board decided that - with the community pharmacy sector at breaking point - it cannot support the immediate roll out of this service. The association believes that with no new funding for the service, and all existing funds in effect already allocated to other pharmacy activity, any payments to the sector for delivery of the oral contraception service will ultimately be clawed back by NHS England. Tweeting after the meeting yesterday, the NPA said: "We can't tell pharmacy owners what they can and can't do. But we can tell them the facts; fact number one is that with no new funding currently available everyone will be a loser from the implementation of this service on the current terms." NPA Vice-Chair Jay Badenhorst added: "We cannot be expected to take on more and more services without the increase in funding necessary to deliver them effectively. Meanwhile, taking on additional work when current workload already exceeds capacity risks impacting negatively on the overall quality of care people experience in pharmacies. We still believe this could, in future, be a great new pharmacy service, but not without the extra funding necessary to deliver it safely and effectively. We want to offer women this extra support, but if it's worth doing it's worth doing properly."

To ease pressure on community pharmacies, the deadline to meet the requirements of the Pharmacy Quality Scheme will be extended, Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) announced today (December 15). This follows an agreement reached between the negotiator and the NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSE&I) and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). Recognising the challenges faced by pharmacies and their contribution towards the Covid-19 vaccination programme, following additional changes have been agreed upon: Contractors will not be required to complete the Community Pharmacy Patient Questionnaire for 2021/2022; The requirement for pharmacy teams to complete a national audit (intended to be on valproate) in 2021/22 will be waived; and The requirement for pharmacy teams to complete a contractor-chosen clinical audit in 2021/22 will be waived.

Tough times for community pharmacies in England are far from over as the industry continues to grapple with major gaps in the workforce. Even though the latest figures released by the Health Education England (HEE) Community Pharmacy Workforce Survey 2021 showed doubling of pharmacist vacancy rate in England to 8 per cent between 2017 and 2021, it flagged the contractors' difficulty level in filling up these positions. The survey report showcased changes in the size and make-up of the community pharmacy workforce since the last survey conducted in 2017. It revealed that 56 per cent of pharmacy contractors reported high difficulty level in recruiting pharmacists, up from 21 per cent in the earlier survey. Moreover, a greater proportion - 60 per cent of contractors found filling up the pharmacy technician role 'fairly' or 'very' difficult. Other roles in the sector considered difficult to fill included accuracy checkers and trained dispensing assistants, both at 58 per cent.

Chief executive of the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee Janet Morrison has said government ministers are looking at the future of community pharmacy in England in a "bigger way" and have a vision to go "beyond the Scotland model". "I think they believe they're going beyond the Scotland model," she said, in her closing keynote at the 7th Annual Pharmacy Business Conference held in London on Sunday (May 14). Giving her views on the latest government funding - worth £645 million - for community pharmacy, the head of pharmacy negotiator, added: "Their thinking is for the future in a bigger and a more forward-thinking way." She added it was for the first time that community pharmacy has been seen "as part of primary care in a really fundamental way that gives us hope for the future". Morrison said the new funding uplift was effectively "for five quarters of activity," arguing that the common condition service won't start before December or early in the New Year due to the time it would take to get the IT systems up and running to support the rollout.

Pharmacy bodies are "bitterly disappointed" that the latest deal on the national contract makes no commitment to "fresh funding", with one organisation calling it "the biggest dis-service ever done" to community pharmacy. The only commitment made in monetary terms was one in which NHS England agreed to write off a sum of £100m in excess margin earned by contractors in previous years. This allowance, which can't be seen as new cash injection, was said to have been made in recognition of the pressures facing the sector. The figure - reached after what the the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee called "a tense period of negotiations" with the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England - will cover the final two years of the current five-year Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework. The deal was announced by PSNC chief executive Janet Morrison at an annual LPC Conference in Manchester on Thursday (22 September). Welcoming the attendees, she assured everyone that the committee was well aware of the pressures the sector was facing. "I heard how contractors are feeling and their frustrations over growing pressure and lack of financial support from the government. They confirmed that many now are unable to deliver the full range of services, and others are struggling to maintain core levels of services. And the ongoing impact of capacity and workforce crisis is critical, leading to temporary closures.

Trade bodies have reiterated the call for more funding in response to the reports that ministers are considering a Pharmacy First scheme amid the NHS strike. The Sunday Telegraph reported that pharmacies could be drafted in to help the NHS to cope when other healthcare workers take industrial action. But, a PSNC committee member has warned on Monday that the government suggestions are "categorically impossible" without extra funding. The Company Chemists' Association (CCA) has echoed the sentiment, saying pharmacy network is on the brink of collapse. "We welcome plans for a Pharmacy First scheme in England. However, after eight years of funding cuts, the pressures on community pharmacies are simply untenable," Malcolm Harrison, chief executive of the CCA, said.

The trade bodies and four largest pharmacy chains in England, have jointly written to the Secretary of State for Health, Steve Barclay, warning that the sector needs urgent investment for sustainability. The letter from AIMp, CCA, NPA, PSNC, Boots UK, Lloyds Pharmacy, Well, and Phoenix UK, warned that the 30 per cent real terms funding cuts that pharmacies have faced over the past seven years have left many businesses in a cashflow crisis. The letter said that the government is facing a choice over the future of the country's 11,000+ community pharmacies, with permanent closures likely and medicines supply at risk if no urgent action is taken. "If the funding situation is not addressed, the sector is likely to move rapidly towards many permanent closures of pharmacies." The organisations say that once these closures start, they will be hard to stop, as the sector is now so fragile other pharmacies would struggle to pick up the slack.