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The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) is encouraging community pharmacy contractors to participate in its third Pharmacy Advice Audit due to be held in the week commencing Monday (January 31). The audit is aimed to demonstrate how pharmacies support their communities every day and assist PSNC in gathering evidence for use in the funding discussions with the government and the NHS. It said that last year's Advice Audit provided compelling evidence for use in negotiations with the government and helped in persuading MPs to support the case for Covid-19 costs. PSNC said: "We would therefore be very grateful to anyone able to take part in this year's audit."

The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC)'s 2022 Pharmacy Advice Audit revealed that more than 1.2 million consultations a week - or 65 million a year - are now being carried out by community pharmacy teams in England. This is an increase from 2021, when the audit results suggested that in total pharmacies were providing 58 million consultations per year. PSNC has published the findings of the audit of over 4,000 community pharmacies carried out earlier this year. During the audit, 82,872 informal patient consultations were recorded, with the average pharmacy completing 19 consultations per day. This suggests that more than 1.2 million informal consultations are taking place in community pharmacies in England every week. The audit helped to quantify the number of informal referrals being made to pharmacies by GPs and NHS 111, with 7,774 informal patient referrals into pharmacy coming from these routes; grossed up to a national level that means 117,000 cases per week. These are all referrals that could and should have been made by the NHS Community Pharmacist Consultation Service (CPCS).

The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) is encouraging community pharmacy contractors and their teams to take part in the negotiator's latest Pharmacy Advice Audit. The audit has been extended but results must be submitted by 23.59 on Friday (March 11). Under the audit, pharmacy teams need to record information about the informal healthcare advice that they give in a single day, which would provide a critical check on how people continue to rely on community pharmacies. The results of the audit will provide key evidence for use in funding discussions with the government and the NHS. Last year's Advice Audit highlighted the scale of the informal consultations that took place in pharmacies during the pandemic, and helped the PSNC to persuade MPs to support the case for Covid-19 costs.