NEWS: Pharmacy first revolution: Changing patient care

As reported by GP Online, NHS England’s Pharmacy First initiative gears up to launch this month, with over 10,000 pharmacies enlisted, aiming to save millions of general practice appointments annually

The plans aim to enable pharmacies to manage patients for seven common conditions following ‘specific clinical pathways’ and builds on the existing community pharmacy consultation service, set up to deliver urgent repeat medicine supplies and to allow pharmacies to take on referrals for minor illness.

The seven conditions covered by Pharmacy First are acute otitis media, impetigo, infected insect bites, shingles, sinusitis, sore throat and uncomplicated UTIs.

Alongside expansions to blood pressure checks and contraception services in pharmacies, NHS England says the plans will save ‘up to 10m general practice team appointments a year and help patients access quicker and more convenient care, including the supply of appropriate medicines for minor illness’.

NHS England says it expects activity to ‘increase gradually’ from the launch date later this month. Patients will be able to access the service either by walking into a pharmacy or via video consultation – and could be referred into the service via NHS 111, the NHS app, urgent care or urgent treatment centres, A&E, 999 or general practice.

Clinical pathways included in the Pharmacy First scheme cover self-care and safety-netting advice and will allow pharmacists to supply ‘a restricted set of prescription-only medicines via patient group directions and/or over-the-counter medicines via clinical protocol’.

GP records

Through February this year, NHS England plans to roll out changes to the way data from pharmacy consultations feeds into GP records.

The update letter said: ‘We have redesigned the way that pharmacy consultation outcomes can be captured in the patient record. This will roll out throughout February 2024 and will mean that practice staff can review consultation information and add the data to the patient record with one click of a button.

NHS England said that practices would be updated via NHSMail until this functionality was up and running – and promised further guidance to support practices and PCNs before Pharmacy First launches.