The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 273 No 7317 p369
18 September 2004

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Minister tells PCTs that the new contract will be a “watershed” for community pharmacy

Health minister Rosie Winterton delivered a positive speech about the future of community pharmacy and the new pharmacy contract at an NHS Confederation conference in London on 15 September. “The agenda for change in community pharmacy is ambitious. The new contract will be seen as a watershed for community pharmacy and for NHS pharmaceutical services,” she said.

“Today is extremely important because we are at a critical point for community pharmacy which not only has obvious implications for community pharmacists themselves but also has implications for patients and the NHS as a whole,” she said. “If we don’t grasp the opportunity now, we could slip back several years and won’t be able to achieve the ambitions we have for patients and for pharmacy.”

The conference was held to discuss modernisation of community pharmacy and was attended by approximately 200 participants, most of whom were representatives of primary care organisations. Ms Winterton urged them to think about how PCTs could develop services with pharmacists.

The minister pointed out that community pharmacy is viewed as slightly detached from the rest of primary care: that it pays too much attention to business and not enough to health care. “My ambition is to turn this around so that community pharmacists think of themselves first and foremost as clinical health care professionals. The NHS can do a lot to support pharmacists in this ambition.” But she added that this did not mean ignoring entrepreneurial skills, something that the NHS could capitalise on in the development of new services.

The minister added: “I remain committed to pharmacies being connected electronically to the rest of the NHS so that they can share information. I am equally committed to pharmacists having access to patient records.”

Chris Town, chairman of the pharmacy contract negotiating group at the NHS Confederation, said that the contract provided an exciting opportunity for both community pharmacists and PCTs. “My worry is whether we are engaging those parts of community pharmacy and PCT-land who haven’t got an idea of the opportunities this contract presents. We need to work collectively to address this,” he said. New guidance published this week (see News feature, p376) aims to tackle this.