Community pharmacies ensure that patients can easily and safely access the medicines and healthcare advice they need.
As the healthcare needs of the nation have changed, so has the role that pharmacies play.
In addition to the safe supply of medicines, pharmacists and their teams now play a key role in treating numerous health conditions and in reducing pressures elsewhere in the NHS. For example, they help to bring down hospital readmissions by reducing avoidable medication-related harm and improving access to vaccines.
With the right investment and support, there is even more that pharmacies can do to build capacity and resilience within NHS primary care. Unfortunately, however, investment in community pharmacy in England has failed to keep pace with an ever-growing NHS workload and increasing costs.
The community pharmacy sector in England is now at a crossroads. Without fundamental change in how the sector is funded, patients will experience an accelerating decline in their ability to access medicines, healthcare services and advice. A failure to invest in medicines supply will mean patients are likely to experience a greater number of medicines shortages. A shrinking community pharmacy network will make it more and more difficult for the NHS to meet patient needs at a time when the backlog continues to grow. With more pharmacy closures occurring in the most deprived communities, this is likely to be worsening health inequalities. Fewer pharmacies mean pressure will increase elsewhere in the health system.
The last few years have demonstrated the value that the community pharmacy network provides to patients and members of the public, as well as local communities.
Patients need a resilient community pharmacy network that can deliver more of the care that the nation needs and support the rest of the healthcare system to address the many other challenges it faces.
Our ‘manifesto for community pharmacy’ spells out six key areas that the next Government must address so patients can receive the best possible care from their local pharmacies.
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