The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 280 No 7505 p680
7 June 2008

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NPA to help members win service contracts

Guidance to help UK community pharmacists bid successfully for services commissioned by primary care organisations is being developed by the National Pharmacy Association.

The toolkit will explain how pharmacists can present business cases that represent best value for money for commissioners as they try to take on more pharmacy services.

It will give advice about how to go about collecting the data needed to support the case for a contract, as well as how the information should be presented and how pharmacists can show that the work they are doing, or plan to do, will benefit patients.

Tonia Morton, NPA lead for the project, said: “Our members are faced with the fact that from a paymaster’s view, if you don’t measure it, it doesn’t matter. This work will enable members to understand how interventions should be recorded so that the evidence can be drawn on to support a case for commissioning.

“There is a danger of disinvestment where service evaluation has not been undertaken, or there is opportunity to develop evidence-based services to fill gaps left by disinvestment elsewhere in the local system. It is essential that evaluation is built into any scheme being developed and is undertaken for existing schemes.”

The toolkit, which will be launched with a workshop to explain how to use it, will be available in the autumn (2008).