Getting to grips with the LPS scheme

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The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 278 No 7457 p737-738
23 June 2007

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Getting to grips with the LPS scheme

In this article Gianpiero Celino and David Reissner explain the local pharmaceutical services scheme in detail, covering the background behind the scheme, what it provides and how contractors can get started

Gianpiero Celino is a director at Webstar Health, which provides consulting and project-management support to PCTs and contractors

David Reissner is a partner and head of healthcare at Charles Russell LLP

Control of entry

Normally, anyone wishing to provide NHS services from a new pharmacy must satisfy a restrictive test of necessity or desirability in order to secure adequate pharmaceutical services.

The NHS (Pharmaceutical Services) Regulations 2005 introduced exemptions to this test for four types of application, the most common of these from pharmacies open at least 100 hours a week. There are few ways in which applications for these kinds of contracts can be rejected.

However, PCTs cannot grant applications that would otherwise be exempt from the necessary or desirable test if there is, or will be, LPS in the neighbourhood.

SUMMARY

Until 2003, community pharmacy owners could only provide NHS services under a national (PhS) contract. The local pharmaceutical services (LPS) scheme was introduced in 2003 as a means to test new ways of working in community pharmacy. Initially a pilot programme, LPS arrangements were made permanent through regulations laid before Parliament in April 2005.

After an initial flurry of activity, interest in LPS declined, but the concept remains a tool in the armoury for those seeking to innovate in the provision of pharmaceutical services. Recently, interest in LPS has been renewed due to the protection that it offers contractors from the threat of 100-hour pharmacy applications.

In the absence of guidance from the Department of Health (DoH), contractors and primary care trusts may find regulations relating to the LPS scheme cumbersome and complex. This article attempts to answer questions that have been raised by PCTs and contractors grappling with the LPS framework to allow them to develop their plans.

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