Investment reluctance

Some community pharmacists are reluctant to invest in their pharmacies because they are concerned about the impact of changes to control-of- entry requirements, according to participants of workshops held at the convention.

“We started off looking at the barriers to implementation of the contract,” Chris Martin, chairman of the UniChem customer forums, explained to The Journal after the workshops.

“Many of the pharmacists had fears around changes to the control-of-entry requirements. And their uncertainty around that has meant that some contractors are reluctant to invest in their pharmacies, particularly in terms of things like skill mix, when they do not know what the effect will be in their local area,” he said.

The workshops also considered what services pharmacies might provide in the future. Participants tended to see practice-based commissioning as a great opportunity, in terms of services pharmacists could offer in areas like diagnostics, Mr Martin added.