Group items tagged

The government has received thousands of ideas to fix the NHS as the biggest ever conversation about the future of the health service reached the Midlands last week. More than 100 people from across the Midlands participated in the public debate in Wigston in Leicestershire on Saturday (23 November), sharing their experiences, views and suggestions for delivering an NHS fit for the future. Public health minister Andrew Gwynne and NHS England's national director for urgent and emergency care Sarah-Jane Marsh attended the debate, inviting attendees' opinions on NHS reform and how the government's 10 Year Health Plan can help tackle disparities in the region. Addressing the event, Gwynne said: "We can't change the NHS and make it better without you." "When we say that the NHS is broken but not beaten, it's not beaten because the staff are incredible, it is because the NHS is not where we need it to be."

In its response to NHS England's consultation on 'the future of vaccination services', the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) has suggested that a wider range of NHS vaccinations being available from community pharmacies could support the achievement of increased vaccination levels. PSNC said: "Any additional services that contractors could provide can only be considered with additional remuneration above the current global sum in the community pharmacy contractual framework to ensure that the services are adequately resourced." Alastair Buxton, director of NHS Services at PSNC, said: "We've always known, and the evidence supports this, that community pharmacies are one of the most popular and accessible places for people to receive a range of vaccinations. "The NHS was slow to take advantage of this at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, so we welcome this consultation from them to bring together a wide range of views on the topic. "In the longer-term, if the right funding and support is in place, many pharmacies could help deliver a much wider range of NHS vaccination programmes - giving the public the convenience and service that they want, and taking pressure off our general practice colleagues. It makes perfect sense, and we look forward to the NHS response to this consultation."

The Labour government has launched the biggest national conversation about the future of the NHS since its birth, calling on the entire country to share their experiences of the health service. The feedback will be used to shape the government's 10 Year Health Plan to fix the "broken" health service and deliver its mission to build an NHS fit for the future. Members of the public, as well as NHS staff and experts, are invited to share their experiences, views and ideas for the future of NHS via a new online platform that goes live today. The Change NHS online platform, which will be live until the start of next year, is also available via the NHS App. The public engagement exercise will focus on three shifts in healthcare - hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention.

As Health Secretary Wes Streeting initiates a national conversation about the future of the NHS, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) has stressed the importance of increasing investment in medicines to fix the 'broken' NHS. Streeting is inviting the public, NHS staff, and experts to share their experiences and contribute to shaping the government's 10 Year Health Plan to build an NHS fit for the future. The government aims to implement three big shifts to transform the NHS: hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention. Richard Torbett, chief executive of the ABPI, has highlighted the vital role medicines and vaccines can play in achieving these priorities. He said: "Wes Streeting is spot-on in identifying three strategic shifts necessary to fix the broken NHS. Medicines and vaccines have a vital role in all three of these priorities, but we are not currently realising their potential."

Tase Oputu, Chair of the RPS England Pharmacy Board, has been appointed to the NHS Assembly, to represent the pharmacy profession. The NHS Assembly is a national forum that brings together stakeholders from across the health and care sectors to advise the NHS England board on implementing the NHS Long Term Plan (LTP). Members include national and frontline clinical leaders, patient leaders, staff representatives, health and care system leaders and voluntary, community and social enterprise sector leaders. The NHS Assembly meets four to five times a year. Tase will officially join the Assembly during its meeting on 11 September. Tase highlighted the crucial role of pharmacists and pharmacy teams in the healthcare system while expressing her anticipation of representing the pharmacy profession at the NHS Assembly.

Community pharmacists involved in the Independent Prescribers Pathfinder Programme will be able to generate NHS prescriptions through the NHS Electronic Prescription Service (EPS). NHS England has secured a new clinical system, CLEO SOLO from Cleo Systems, to facilitate this service. The system is being rolled out to 'pathfinder' sites so they can start delivering their proposed prescribing models and pathways. Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) across England have been informed of this development and are asked to provide support and leadership to their sites throughout the programme, which will run until March 2025. NHS England will also conduct a series of webinars with ICBs to discuss the CLEO SOLO rollout. David Webb, Chief Pharmaceutical Officer at NHS England, highlighted that the Pathfinder Programme will enable community pharmacist prescribers at 'pathfinder' sites to issue NHS prescriptions for conditions such as cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. "This will help us develop a framework which will support the commissioning of independent prescribing as part of clinical services in community pharmacy in the future," Webb said.

A groundbreaking research project has revealed that the public is urging the government to prioritise primary and community care over hospitals. The study also found a strong public willingness to pay higher taxes to enhance NHS services. The Health Foundation and Ipsos UK conducted the research, combining nationwide polling with in-depth public deliberative workshops. These workshops, held in King's Lynn, Leeds, and London, constitute one of the most comprehensive public consultations about the future of the NHS in England. The study published on 16 May underscores the public's desire for a redistribution of NHS resources. If the NHS budget remains unchanged, 60 per cent of those polled believe the government should focus on improving access to community-based services like general practice and dentistry.

In continuation of the NHS Covid vaccine programme, Covid jabs for five and six-year olds will be available at the local vaccination centres or community pharmacies outside of school hours. Following the recent JCVI guidance that recommended all children between 5 and 11 would benefit from a non-urgent offer of the COVID vaccine, the NHS will send invitations to one million families with five and six-year-olds this week. "Invitations being sent to families this week will set out how easy and convenient it is to take up the offer of a vaccine as part of the NHS COVID vaccination programme by booking through the National Booking Service, or visiting their nearest walk-in site," NHS said. Between April 25 and May 1, there are already more than 33,500 children aged five to 11 booked in for their dose of the life-saving vaccine, with a further 50,000 slots still available. Dr Nikki Kanani, GP and Deputy Lead for the NHS COVID-19 vaccination programme, said: "It is great to see so many families already booked in for their children to receive their Covid vaccine this week, helping to protect themselves against potential future waves of the virus.

The National Health Service (NHS) is embracing new technology and innovations like artificial intelligence (AI) to reduce the number of missed hospital appointments and improve waiting times for elective care. Following a successful pilot in Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, the health service is set to roll out AI software to 10 more trusts across England in the coming months. The software, developed by Deep Medical in collaboration with a frontline worker and NHS clinical fellow, helps reduce the number of missed appointments by offering patients convenient time slots and backup booking options. Since the AI programme was piloted six months ago, Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust has seen a 30 per cent fall in non-attendances. During the pilot period, a total of 377 did not attends (DNAs) were prevented and an additional 1,910 patients were attended.

In a significant move to enhance the working conditions of over 50,000 postgraduate doctors in the National Health Service, NHS England has unveiled a series of measures aimed at providing greater choice and opportunities to the new entrants in the medical profession. With flexible rotas, reducing payroll errors, and easing the financial burden of course fees, the NHS has taken steps to address the issues faced by junior doctors in order to support their well-being. In recent announcement, 83 per cent of senior doctors and dentists accepted the government's pay offer. Alongside the junior doctors who still fighting for fair pay and recognition, the senior medical professionals demanded that the authorities help them tackle issues pertaining underfunding and overworking in the NHS. Junior doctors in training also often face challenges with frequent moves between trusts, leading to short notice changes in work schedules and duplicated inductions when transitioning to new hospitals. As a measure taken by the health serivces, the committee aims to review the minimum legal requirements for statutory and mandatory training, potentially halving the time burden for such training and allowing doctors to spend more time caring for patients as part of the long-term workforce plan.

The government has unveiled its much awaited 'NHS Long-Term Workforce Plan' to tackle the staff shortage in the pharmacy sector. The plan set out an ambition to increase the training places for pharmacists to around 5,000 places by 2031/32. David Webb, Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for England, in his open letter to pharmacy professionals said: "The NHS LTWP sets out how we can build on changes, addressing the changing needs of patients over the next 15 years, by closing the current workforce shortfall through funding for increased education and training places and a comprehensive retention strategy." The plan commits to expand training places for pharmacists by 29% to around 4,300 by 2028/29 and Grow the number of pharmacy technicians in future years. "The development of independent prescribing as part of initial education and training is a gamechanger for pharmacists, patients and the NHS, with approximately 2,800 newly registered pharmacist independent prescribers due to join the workforce every year from September 2026," said Webb. "This will be transformational for all pharmacy teams, creating improved access and quality of care for patients and, importantly, a more flexible workforce with skills that are equally applicable in all pharmacy settings, enabling multi-professional clinical teams to work in new ways."

Former Health Secretary Alan Milburn has been appointed as the lead non-executive member of the Department of Health and Social Care's (DHSC) board to support the government's ambitious NHS reform agenda. He will succeed Samantha Jones, who has served as a non-executive director since February 2023. Milburn, known for his successful track record in reducing NHS waiting lists and improving patient satisfaction, will offer advice to help rebuild an NHS fit for the future. Expressing his enthusiasm to be appointed to this role, Milburn said, "Having spent three decades working in health policy, I have never seen the NHS in a worse state. Big reforms will be needed to make it fit for the future. "I am confident this government has the right plans in place to transform the health service and the health of the nation. "I'm looking forward to working with them to achieve that mission."

The Pharmacists Defence Association (PDA) has expressed its keenness to work with the NHS nationally and at the ICB level to discuss how the pharmacist workforce can most effectively be part of the multidisciplinary team, after the publication of Long-awaited NHS England workforce plan. Welcoming its publication Alison Jones, PDA Director of Policy said: "It gives greater clarity around the future direction and strategy for professional development, training, and opportunities for those currently working in the health service or considering their future career. There is a strong emphasis on further development of the clinical role of pharmacists to support better patient care. "However, this is a plan that will take years, indeed decades to come to fruition and its success will need to be underpinned by significant funding for its entire life course. Workplace pressures, reductions in support staff, and a lack of protected learning time are matters of immediate concern for many PDA members, issues which are regularly highlighted through activities, such as the safer pharmacies survey.

The government has allocated an additional 350 medical school places in England, making a significant step in delivering the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan. Supported by more than £2.4 billion in government funding, the plan outlines the strategy for recruiting and retaining hundreds of thousands more staff over the next 15 years to deliver the future workforce the NHS requires. One of the key commitments of the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan is to double the number of medical school places in England to 15,000 by 2031. As part of the ongoing efforts to fulfill this pledge, the Office for Students (OfS) has designated 350 places for medical schools nationwide for the academic year 2025 to 2026, targeting under-doctored areas.

Community pharmacy teams are urged to share their views relating to the new NHS Booking and Referral Standard (BaRS). "This will ensure that the tool supports the needs of pharmacy team members and their patients," said the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC). BaRS is an interoperability standard for healthcare IT systems which should enable booking and referral information to be sent to or from care providers, such as community pharmacies, quickly, safely and in a format useful to clinicians. "The intentions are that the BaRS IT standard will eventually be available in all care settings. The way the standard could be used in pharmacies is currently being considered, including the potential for use for referrals from NHS 111 to community pharmacy." The BaRS team are conducting interviews (usually lasting 30-45 minutes) to hear more the current experiences and the future preferences regarding sending and receiving referral messages.

The King's Fund has published an in-depth analysis highlighting the priorities that the government's new 10-year health plan should address to combat health inequalities. This plan, currently being developed by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England, will significantly shape the long-term future of the NHS. The independent think tank emphasises that a core focus of this new plan should be to enable the NHS to better address health inequalities and support people with the worst health outcomes. Sarah Woolnough, CEO of The King's Fund, explained: "Health inequalities are avoidable, unfair, and systematic differences in health between different groups of people, and they reflect broader societal issues such as those related to income, housing, gender, ethnicity or disability." "Supporting the health and care system to do more to tackle these differences has been a strategy priority for the Fund over the past five years." Drawing on its extensive work on health inequalities in the last five years, the charity has outlined seven key priorities that should shape the 10-year health plan:

Pharmacies and other spaces should be able to facilitate the provision of health care to bring services closer to patients and reduce demands on general practice, suggested a report by Tony Blair Institute. In a paper 'Modern and Sustainable NHS Providing Accessible and Personalised Care for All', it has propose six areas for reform where radical-but-practical policy action will begin to transform the future of the NHS and deliver better patient care. It has proposed to create new access routes for services and providers. It added: "The range and availability of health-care services must increase to reflect citizens' demands and their increasingly complex needs. "Pharmacies, gyms, supermarkets, workplaces and other spaces should all be able to provide or facilitate the provision of health care, bringing services closer to patients and reducing demands on general practice. It suggested: "We must move towards greater community-based care and the creation of a neighbourhood health service, with more routes for direct patient access, to ensure services are available when and where people need them. These should all be accessible through a single, simple digital front door to the NHS."

The NHS has launched plans to expand pioneering subscription-style drug contracts to develop lifesaving antibiotics of the future. It is building on its world-first pilot to incentivise the pharmaceutical industry to develop new antibiotics that could be offered to NHS patients when they need them the most. The consultation has launched almost a year to the day that contracts for two superbug-busting drugs were rolled out as part of a world-first pilot. Cefiderocol and ceftazidime-avibactam, new antibiotics manufactured by Shionogi and Pfizer respectively, were awarded world-first subscription contracts which provided the companies with a fixed annual fee based primarily on the availability of the drugs and their value to the NHS, as opposed to the volumes used. By breaking the link between the payments companies receive and the number of their antibiotics prescribed, the NHS is removing any incentive to overuse antibiotics, decreasing the risk of life-threatening infections, such as sepsis and pneumonia, becoming resistant to treatment.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) and National Pharmacy Association (NPA) have both urged the new health secretary Steve Barclay to back the 'pharmacy first' approach in England as mentioned by his predecessor on numerous occasions. "Sajid Javid recognised the vital role of community pharmacy and the potential of a 'Pharmacy First' to support patient access to care. I would urge the new Health Secretary to see this through to completion," said chair of RPS in England Thorrun Govind. Thorrun hopes the new health secretary will engage with pharmacy leaders about how we can make the most of our health and care workforce to support the NHS recovery, including reducing health inequalities, managing the growing cost of long-term conditions, and utilising the enhanced skills of Pharmacist Independent Prescribers. Commenting on the new appointment, she said: "This is a crucial time for the future of health and care - with continued pressures on teams, changes to NHS structures and organisations, and the need for long-term investment in the workforce. "With a 'refresh' of the NHS Long-Term Plan and the Government's workforce plan expected later this year, these must support a more ambitious approach to advancing the clinical role of pharmacists across the NHS to better meet changing patient demand, backed by investment in pharmacy education and training.

A new report from the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) has highlighted that while the NHS has made significant progress in the introduction of cell and gene therapies, the health service must "do more to get ready for the arrival of the advanced therapies of the future." The ABPI noted that advanced therapies, also known as Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs), offer hope for diseases previously deemed "untreatable." ATMPs have already been introduced for treating some rarer conditions, including haemophilia, spinal muscular atrophy, and a rare disease that causes blindness. "In some cases, these therapies can transform people's lives with just a single treatment," the Association said. The ABPI's report, titled Unlocking Access to Future ATMPs in the UK: Comparing International Approaches, emphasises the need for the NHS to revise its payment strategies for upcoming therapies.