New pharmacist contract < Influencers contents | Print this page Earlier in 2004, pharmacists voted overwhelmingly to proceed with discussions on their new contract. As with the GP general medical services contract, the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC), DH and the NHS Confederation agreed principles to define what both essential and advanced services are. Chris Town, chief executive of North and South Peterborough PCT and leading the renegotiations on behalf of the NHS Confederation has said, ‘It would see pharmacists doing more clinical tasks such as managing minor ailments, managing chronic conditions and supplementary prescribing.’ See Framework for a new community pharmacy contract. In outline, the new contract will involve a range of services grouped as follows: Essential services — defined as those that community pharmacy contractors must normally provide under the new arrangements. Most of these services with the main exception of repeat dispensing are already provided by pharmacies. Advanced services (previously called ‘enhanced’) — defined as those that require accreditation of the pharmacist providing the services. Enhanced services (previously called ‘supplementary’ or ‘additional’) — defined as those that will be commissioned and paid for by PCTs. These also include:
However, discussions on the new contract stalled over the summer of 2004 because of disagreements over the funding package — the new GP contact had apparently taken most of the DH’s ‘developmental’ monies because of ‘cost overruns’ on nGMS. However this impasse has now been overcome and the PSNC has accepted the DH’s funding offer of £1.76bn for the new community pharmacy contract. At a special PSNC meeting, the PSNC committee voted unanimously in favour of the DH's offer. Barry Andrews, PSNC chair said: ‘The PSNC has accepted the Department of Health's offer of funding, subject to a number of outstanding issues that need to be considered. This has been a long and difficult negotiation but the unanimous vote demonstrates that we believe we now have a sum that offers fair funding. Provided we can reach agreement on the outstanding issues, we can proceed to roadshows and a ballot of contractors’. Sue Sharpe, chief executive of PSNC said: ‘PSNC considered fully the offer from the Department of Health. It agreed unanimously that it would provide what we have been working to achieve — fair funding for the new contract. The negotiating team will work on outstanding issues in the next few weeks and the PSNC committee will make decisions at its meeting next month. Once further detail on the funding is available PSNC will distribute this information to contractors. We are committed to providing full information to contractors before the ballot on funding. PSNC believes that the new contract offers great opportunities for community pharmacy to increase the services it provides for the public and the NHS.’ See www.psnc.org.uk/contract. Because a ballot is now required, it is highly unlikely that the new community pharmacy contract will be in place before April 2005. Note that the
NHS Confederation has begun to produce a series of factsheets on
the new pharmacist contract for its members in England and Wales.
PCTs and local health boards are now asked to get on with their
preparation for the introduction of the new contract and the factsheet
usefully summaries the steps required, as An NHS Confederation survey of PCT members in summer 2004 showed mixed results regarding the preparation for implementation of the new pharmacist contract. The new contract will definitely open up new roles for community pharmacists. The PSNC is excited about the new contract because it is likely to include a lot around chronic disease management. Certainly NHS influencers will need to track ongoing developments as it can be predicted that the arrival of this new contract will, over time, radically change relationships between companies and the world of community pharmacy. All of this resonates with a policy paper from the Institute for Public Policy Research, (The Future Health Worker) which suggests that government should lose its obsession with structural change and concentrate instead on transforming the people that work in it. It calls for more extended roles and new types of health workers such as healthcare practitioners. And in Future partnerships: primary care in 2020? Professor David Taylor, professor of pharmacy and public health policy at London University’s School of Pharmacy, suggests that in the future pharmacists will largely be dealing with most minor disease, in partnership with GPs. Note that as part of the government’s public health strategy a contract was awarded to Pharmacy HealthLink, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, the Faculty of Public Health and the UK Public Health Association. Working as a consortium, the organisations will talk to pharmacists and carry out surveys, exploring how pharmacists can enhance their contribution to public health when providing health advice — monitoring hypertension, diabetes, etc. Health minister Rosie Winterton said: ‘To date, pharmacists have been a major untapped resource for health improvement. The track record of community pharmacists in areas such as stopping smoking, sexual health advice and substance misuse is evidence of how integral they are to tackling public health issues. But we would like pharmacists do even more and get involved in aspects of care such as checking people's blood pressure and even measuring blood glucose levels. This consortium will help to maximise the contribution of pharmacists.’ Plans to develop a pharmaceutical public health strategy were first detailed in A vision for pharmacy in the new NHS published in 2003. A multi-professional steering group has been set up to advise the Department on the development of the pharmacy public health strategy with representation from the RPSGB, hospital pharmacy, community pharmacy, the Faculty of Public Health, the College of Pharmacy Practice, the Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education, Pharmacy HealthLink, the UK public Health Association and SHAs and PCTs. The public health role of pharmacists also forms part of Choosing health?, the consultation on public health.
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