PAGB welcomes NICE quality standard on community pharmacy promoting health and wellbeing

NICE has published a quality standard on community pharmacy promoting health and wellbeing.

It describes high quality care in priority areas for improvement, including:

• The importance of community pharmacies and commissioners working together to raise awareness of the health and wellness expertise and services available from community pharmacy teams
• How community pharmacies and commissioners can work in partnership to integrate community pharmacy services into care and referral pathways and agree health and wellbeing interventions to support people from underserved groups.

Commenting on the NICE quality standard regarding community pharmacy, Donna Castle, Executive Director of Policy for PAGB, the consumer healthcare association, notes:

“PAGB welcomes the publication of this NICE quality standard. Pharmacists are expert heath care professionals on the high street, ideally placed to provide self-care advice and treatment for self-treatable conditions.

“Results from a recent survey we independently commissioned show that post-lockdown more people are willing to visit their pharmacy. Almost one in three people (31%) who would not have visited a pharmacy for advice before seeking help elsewhere said they were more likely to do so following the Covid-19 pandemic. Almost seven out of ten respondents (69%) who might not have considered self- care as their first option before the pandemic said they were more likely to likely to do so in future.”

PAGB believes pharmacy should be a core part of the primary care team and pharmacists should be empowered to fulfil this vital role. In particular we believe that:

• Community pharmacists should be given appropriate access and the ability to populate medical records
• Community pharmacists should be empowered to refer people to other health care professionals when appropriate, fast-tracked if necessary
• Appropriate referral pathways must also be put in place to encourage other healthcare professionals to refer people directly to pharmacy for self care advice.
• Community pharmacists must be enabled to take referrals for consultations about self-treatable conditions from NHS 111 online as part of the CPCS¹.

Donna Castle adds:

“We welcome the recognition of the important role of pharmacy in the new NICE quality standard and the value in integrating community pharmacy into primary care pathways. Community pharmacies are at the heart of communities and should be seen as the most appropriate place to access effective self care information and advice.”

¹ The NHS Community Pharmacist Consultation Service (CPCS) was launched on 29th October 2019 as an Advanced Service in England which connects patients who have a minor illness or need an urgent supply of a medicine with a community pharmacy. The CPCS takes referrals to community pharmacy from the NHS 111 telephone line (and NHS 111 online only for requests for urgent medicine supply)