The Local Pharmaceutical Committees (LPCs) has rebranded to be known as Community Pharmacy to present a strengthened and unified identity to the
local NHS, local government and other stakeholders, as the local voice of community pharmacy.
"There are now 58 LPCs in England. The number of LPCs has reduced from 69, with further consolidation expected by April 2024 to a network of 48 local organisations,"
said Community Pharmacy England.
"The changes mean there will be better alignment between LPCs and the 42 NHS Integrated Care Systems in England, who have taken on the responsibility for
commissioning pharmaceutical services delegated by NHS England."
"This marks a significant milestone, as similar to Community Pharmacy England, LPCs have been undergoing changes to respond to the Review Steering Group (RSG)
recommendations on pharmacy representation. The sector voted in favour of the RSG proposals in the summer of 2022, and since then progress has been made on many
of the changes at both local and national level as part of the Transforming Pharmacy Representation (TAPR) Programme."
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.
Dr Amanda Doyle has been appointed as NHS England as director of primary and community care.
Prior to her new role, Amanda had joined NHS England and NHS Improvement as North West Regional Director on 2 August 2021 and previously she was the Chief
Clinical Officer for West Lancashire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), Blackpool CCG and Fylde and Wyre CCG.
Amanda was also the Integrated Care System Lead for Lancashire and South Cumbria, leading a large health and care transformation programme across the patch.
She has been a GP for more than 20 years, practising in a large practice in a deprived area of Blackpool, which, in addition to primary medical services, provides a range of urgent care services for patients across the Fylde Coast.
Amanda was the Co-Chair of NHS Clinical Commissioners from 2013 to 2018.
She was Senior Responsible Officer for the primary care component of the Long Term Plan and was involved in the leadership of the health inequalities, prevention and personalisation elements.
NHS England has launched a cloud-based platform that links recently-retired consultants, who still hold a licence to practice, with secondary care providers
who need additional help with their waiting lists.
It has been developed to make it easier and more flexible for retired doctors to return to the health service as part of the Long Term Workforce Plan.
NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard in June 2023 announced the NHS Emeritus pilot scheme, which is expected to help reduce long waits for elective care.
Initially, the scheme will run for a year across England, and if successful, it may be expanded to cover other work areas.
Health Minister Andrew Stephenson commented: "Returning consultants will bring invaluable experience and knowledge, and the new digital platform will match
highly-skilled consultants with the NHS trusts that require their expertise, providing high quality care and alleviating pressures on high demand areas.
The NHS England has developed and published a new vaccination strategy with an aim to increase national uptake of lifesaving vaccinations, and protect people
against a range of diseases.
Getting vaccinations will become easier than ever before, as the NHS App is being expanded with more additional features.
Improved booking features such as new in-App bookings, invitation alerts and appointment notifications will make "booking a jab as easy as booking a cab," NHS
leaders said.
The NHS App overhaul will also include improved access to medical records, meaning users will be able to see their routine vaccination status over the coming
months and years, making it easier for them to identify any missed vaccinations in their history.
NHS England's decision to forgo commissioning puberty suppressing hormones (PSH) for children and young people, citing insufficient evidence of their safety
and clinical effectiveness, follows a comprehensive review conducted by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in 2020.
The clinical report underscores that "PSH treatment options will not be part of routine commissioning" for people under the age of 18 in England grappling with
gender incongruence or dysphoria.
The NHS England review analysed nine observational studies on Gonadotrophin Releasing Hormone Analogues (GnRHa) and found no statistically significant difference
in gender dysphoria, mental health, body image, and psychosocial functioning among children and adolescents treated with GnRHa.
Duncan Rudkin, chief executive of the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), acknowledged the challenges faced by pharmacy professionals regarding prescriptions
for puberty suppressing hormones, stating:
NHS England will collaborate with "a number of system suppliers" to increase the number of trusts using electronic prescription service (EPS) over the next
few years.
Nishali Patel, clinical lead for digital medicines at NHS England, announced it during the Clinical Pharmacy Congress, held at the Excel, London, on Friday, 10 May
2024.
According to Nishali, at least half of all NHS secondary care trusts could be using EPS by 2026.
This digital service allows prescribers to send prescriptions electronically to a patient-nominated pharmacy. It is widely used in primary care, where over 95
per cent of prescriptions are now electronically generated. NHS recently extended the service to secondary care settings.
Thanks to a new service added to the NHS App, patients in England can now see their prescriptions online and collect their prescribed medication from
the nominated pharmacy or a pharmacy of their choice without a paper prescription.
NHS England has introduced digital prescriptions in the app following a successful trial last year involving over a million users.
Users without a nominated pharmacy can collect their prescriptions from any pharmacy using the barcode in the app, but this is not required for patients with
a nominated pharmacy as details would be sent to their pharmacy electronically.
From now on, patients waiting for elective hospital treatment can also check the average waiting time for their procedure at their local trust using the NHS App.
Insect bites and stings typically increase in the summer in England. This year, however, there's been an earlier-than-usual spike in the number of people
seeking NHS advice on the condition.
According to the NHS England, visits to its insect bites and stings web page have nearly tripled in the last three weeks compared to the same period last year,
peaking at an average of one visit every 22 seconds in the past week.
Over the span of 21 days, a total of 68,986 visited the page, marking a significant 162 per cent increase compared to the 26,368 visits recorded in the first three
weeks of May 2023.
Although insect bites or stings are usually not serious and people tend to get better after a few days, the health service has cautioned that they can lead to
infection or severe allergic reactions.
People are encouraged to refer to the NHS website for advice or visit their local pharmacy to get advice and treatment for common health conditions, including
infected insect bites.
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.
Britain on Monday (January 10) put the biggest private health companies on high alert to deliver crucial treatments such as cancer surgery should Omicron
overwhelm National Health Service hospitals in England.
The United Kingdom's death toll from the Covid-19 pandemic stands at 150,154, the world's seventh worst official Covid toll after the United States, Brazil, India, Russia, Mexico and Peru.
Prime minister Boris Johnson has bet on refraining from lockdowns to deal with the Omicron variant which in recent weeks has swept across the UK, albeit with death
rates significantly lower than previous waves.
In a sign of just how stretched the NHS could become, health secretary Sajid Javid ordered England's NHS to strike a three-month deal with private health companies to allow patients to get treatments such as cancer surgery outside.
"Millions of patients have already got their tests and treatment quicker thanks to our existing deal with independent providers," said David Sloman, NHS England chief operating officer and Covid incident director.
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.
A Labour Party analysis of NHS trust figures has revealed that around 148,000 people died last year while waiting for treatment in England.
This is more than double the figure recorded in 2017/18, which stood at around 60,000 deaths. It even surpasses the mortality rate observed in 2021, during
the peak of the Covid pandemic.
The Labour Party obtained the data through a freedom of information request sent to every NHS trust in England. Out of the 169 acute and community trusts
contacted, 80 responded.
The total number of deaths reported by the respondents was 61,396. Extrapolating this figure to all trusts would suggest a total of 148,227 deaths.
The NHS Confederation and the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) has published a report that demonstrated the importance of the
collaboration between industry and the NHS to improve patient outcomes across the UK.
Analysis from the report has shown a significant variation in access to innovative medicines for patients across the UK and showed that uptake of new treatments
in these areas continues to be below the average of similar countries in Europe.
The report, 'Transforming Lives, Improving Health Outcomes', has highlighted four initiatives where effective partnerships between the NHS, patient organisations
and industry have helped to tackle unwarranted variation in the uptake of innovative medicines.
Transforming Lives, Improving Health Outcomes also called for a systemwide secondary prevention strategy covering all parts of the health system creating a barrier
to wider and consistent uptake of innovative medicine. It also noted that newly created Integrated Care Systems have the potential to improve preventative treatment.
The report data also showed a 51% variation of uptake of three types of medicines related to diabetes between NHS Trusts in England.
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."
Eighty-five per cent of adults responding to a survey commissioned by the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) have agreed that community pharmacies are
underfunded and that the sector needs more investment to be able to do the work it does.
The survey of 1,000+ adults in England was carried out online between August 26 and 30 by an agency called Research Without Barriers (RWB) on behalf of the NPA.
Pharmacies in England are now paid less for providing NHS services than they were before the Covid-19 pandemic, after years of real terms cuts.
Seventy-four per cent respondents think it's unfair that community pharmacies in England have had no increase in funding for eight years, despite rising business
costs.
When asked whether it's fair or unfair that pharmacies in England are now paid less for providing NHS services than they were before the pandemic, 81 per cent of
people replied that it's unfair.
Hundreds of children in England are set to benefit from a treatment for cystic fibrosis - Kaftrio, after the UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) confirmed an extension to its licence.
With the licence extension, more than 1,300 children in England with cystic fibrosis, aged six to 11, are newly eligible for this treatment, which improves lung function and improves overall quality of life of patients.
Earlier, Kaftrio was only licensed for those aged 12 and above.
British patients were the first in Europe to benefit from Kaftrio, when NHS England secured a landmark deal in June 2020.
NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard said: "Since NHS staff delivered one of the fastest rollouts of Kaftrio in the world just over a year ago, the lives of thousands of patients with cystic fibrosis have been transformed.
"Innovative treatments like Kaftrio are life-changing for patients and their families, and that is why the NHS has done all it can since we secured the deal for Kaftrio to ensure patients benefit as soon as possible.
The large majority of adults in the England knew that flu jabs are available in many pharmacies, just over half were aware of the GP Community Pharmacist
Consultation Service or the New Medicine Service, according to a new survey by the National Pharmacy Association (NPA).
The new survey revealed the need to raise the public awareness of key NHS services such as the New Medicine Service.
According to the survey, 56 per cent of those asked believed that pharmacies in England offer NHS consultations for people newly prescribed a medicine for a
long-term condition.
While 48 per cent believed that many pharmacies in England offer blood pressure monitoring (NHS or private). 51 per cent believed it to be true that GPs can
formally refer patients for same-day clinical advice from their local pharmacist about minor ailments.
NHS England is set to roll out a new test this week that will help doctors to spot a rare form of eye cancer in babies in the womb.
The NHS test developed at Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust, identifies the risk of developing retinoblastoma in babies that can be monitored
and treated sooner - increasing the chance of saving their eyesight and potentially their lives.
The new non-invasive test can detect changes in the genes in DNA and is likely to identify around 50 infants with retinoblastoma each year, in the latest example
of the NHS harnessing the power of genomics to diagnose and treat patients faster and more effectively.
Non-Invasive Prenatal Diagnosis (NIPD) also means parents can be informed early in pregnancy if their child is at risk.
"The blood sample test is taken from the mother before birth and tested and analysed for mutations, which can determine with almost 100 per cent accuracy if the baby will develop retinoblastoma," the NHS said.
Seven NHS trusts in England are set to begin trials of new wireless technologies to help improve patient care and strengthen connectivity in A&Es and
ambulance bays.
They have been awarded around £1 million as part of NHS England's Wireless Trials programme, which aims to leverage advanced wireless technologies to enhance
patient care and experiences while freeing up more staff time.
Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust will introduce an innovative approach of combining satellite and cloud-based wireless solutions to enhance connectivity
across its 10 hospital sites and wider community services.
At Mid Cheshire and Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS trusts, wireless trackers will be installed on medical equipment and hospital beds. This will allow real-time
monitoring and location tracking, enabling easy accessibility for staff to locate necessary items promptly.