Pharmacies to provide more frontline healthcare after year-long deadlock broken

A deal worth hundreds of millions has finally broken a year-long deadlock between the government and community pharmacies over providing key health services across England.

- DAVID MADDOX

Ministers hope that it will allow pharmacists to deal with many medical issues and, as a result, free up GP time for more serious problems, although the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) warned the funding fell a “long way short of the NHS’s own estimates” of the true cost of providing pharmacy services.

Speaking exclusively to The Independent, health minister Stephen Kinnock described the contract agreed between the government and Community Pharmacy England as an important step to fixing “a broken pharmacy sector”.

He praised The Independent’s coverage of the pharmacy crisis highlighting “a tsunami of closures”.

The deal will mean that the morning-after pill for women will be free of charge across the whole country for the first time in history, ending the postcode lottery.

Pharmacies have been threatening to work to rule over funding. Added to that, late last year the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) revealed there were 1,200 fewer pharmacies than in 2017.

With a growing crisis in pharmacy provision in England, the previous Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (CPCF) ran out in March last year, but Rishi Sunak’s Tory government had been unable to agree a new one before the election.

After nine months of further talks, Sir Keir Starmer’s government finally agreed a deal worth an extra £617m over two years following a six-week consultation with the organisation.

On top of this, the government is writing off £193m of debt for community pharmacy owners to give them confidence going into the new financial year on 1 April.