NPA responds to polyclinic threat to community pharmacy network
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Local communities: NPA urges local authorities to assess polyclinics’ impact |
Local authority OSCs
Local authority overview and scrutiny committees
comprise elected councillors with responsibility to consider issues
affecting
the health of local people.
The outcomes of local consultations
are
subject to scrutiny by the OSCs.
Where a committee is not
satisfied with the content of the consultation, or that the proposal
is in the interests of the health service in the area, it has
powers
to refer these issues to the Secretary of State for Health. |
Moves to secure the community pharmacy network in the face of plans to establish polyclinics have been made by the National Pharmacy Association.
The NPA has written to all local authority overview and scrutiny committees
(OSCs) in England to ask them to use their powers to ensure that adequate
consultation takes place over the development of these health centres.
Local
public consultations are currently taking place following recommendations
from Lord Darzi in the interim
report of his NHS review (PJ, 13 October
2007, p393).
The NPA wants OSCs to use their powers under the Consolidated NHS Act
2006 to ensure that consultations are underpinned by information that
explains the full impact on services and communities surrounding the
health centre, and that the next stages of the procurement and implementation
process apply this same logic.
It also wants the committees to ensure
that primary care trusts commit to a “neighbourhood access analysis” that
assesses whether a care “void” could be created in pockets
and also considers the potential for expanding community pharmacy-based
services to ensure continued and improved access to services.
The NPA believes that this impact assessment could be incorporated into
the health inequality impact assessment that PCTs are already required
to carry out.
Stephen Fishwick, head of external relations at the NPA, said: “We
are not anti-polyclinics per se. Indeed, if these centres are sensitively
integrated with existing health infrastructures, they present opportunities
for community pharmacy. But we are concerned that co-location is being
enacted by PCTs with less attention given to integration — the
terms are far from interchangeable in this context.”
Mr Fishwick added that the NPA suspects that PCT public consultations
may not in all cases have explained this tension. For example, they may
have asked whether people would like a pharmacy in the polyclinic but
without giving information about the implications for services provided
outside the immediate vicinity of the clinic.
“Commissioners need to look at the needs and services in and around
the polyclinics,” he argued. Access-critical services, such as
chlamydia screening, emergency hormonal contraception and minor ailments
schemes,
need to be expanded, particularly where GPs have relocated to join a
health centre, he added.
The NPA’s call came as Lord Darzi published “Leading
local change”, a report that sets out five pledges on how the
NHS will handle changes to services.
Society The Royal Pharmaceutical
Society has issued a statement that calls for guaranteed impact assessments
to be carried out in every locality where a polyclinic
is planned. It suggests economic, social and healthcare factors that should
be considered in an assessment.
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