The NHS 10-year plan will see pharmacists among the staff leading the Government’s new neighbourhood health centres, the Prime Minister has announced.
This will reduce pressure and demand on hospitals and allow secondary care teams to focus on specialist care supported by technology to improve productivity.
Sir Keir Starmer set out the details of the highly anticipated 10-year plan for the NHS – largely focusing on the Government’s ambitions for a Neighbourhood Health Service.
As part of this, the Government confirmed the launch of new neighbourhood health centres, which will ‘eventually’ be open 12 hours a day, six days a week within local communities.
These centres will bring ‘historically hospital-based services into the community’, including diagnostics, post-operative care and rehabilitation, while also providing services such weight management, stop smoking, debt advice and employment support.
This will move ‘the majority of outpatient care’ outside of hospitals and into the community by 2035, the Government said.
Pharmacists are among the list of professionals named by the Government to staff these neighbourhood centres. The plan also specifies that the role of community pharmacy in the management of long-term conditions will increase and that they will be linked to the single patient record – a long-held ambition.
‘These neighbourhood health centres will provide easier, more convenient access to a full range of healthcare services right on people’s doorsteps – stopping them from having to make lengthy trip to hospitals,’ the Government said.
‘Neighbourhood teams will include staff like nurses, doctors, social care workers, pharmacists, health visitors, palliative care staff and paramedics.’
Community workers and volunteers will also ‘play a pivotal role in these teams’.
Supporting productive and specialist hospital care via the 10-year plan
With this shift from hospital to community, the Government aims to ‘enable hospitals to focus on providing world class specialist care to those who need it’, highlighting that ‘small amounts of community expenditure can unlock disproportionate amounts of hospital capacity’.
It is hoped that by reducing the demand and pressure on hospitals, they will ‘do less firefighting’ and ‘have greater means to boost productivity through technology and artificial intelligence (AI)’.
As part of this, the NHS 10-year plan also states that ‘by 2035, robots will deliver care with unprecedented precision’, including pharmacy automation ensuring medication gets to patients quickly, easily and safely.
Last month, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) urged the Government to commit to upgrading digital systems in hospital pharmacy as a Government spending review committed to boosting the NHS.
More broadly, the ‘Fit for the future’ plan promotes healthcare digitisation, advocating increased AI assisted diagnosis, comprehensive digital records, and the ability for patients to digitally book, move and cancel appointments, and communicate virtually with their healthcare team.
A ‘My Medicines’ tool will simplify the management of repeat prescriptions for delivery or collection for patients and will remind them of what they need to take and when.
The long-term aim of this tool is to use pharmacogenomics to guide patients on drug interactions and help to avoid adverse drug reactions.
‘Rewire and future-proof our NHS’
Announcing the ‘Fit for the future: 10-year health plan for England’, Sir Keir said: ‘Our 10 Year Health Plan will fundamentally rewire and future-proof our NHS so that it puts care on people’s doorsteps, harnesses game-changing tech and prevents illness in the first place.
‘That means giving everyone access to GPs, nurses and wider support all under one roof in their neighbourhood – rebalancing our health system so that it fits around patients’ lives, not the other way round.’
And he pledged that patients would have ‘easier, quicker and more convenient care, wherever they live’.
The Prime Minister added: ‘The future of healthcare is no longer defined by top-down citadels of a central state, but is instead, in your home, in your community, in your hands.’
Pharmacy can play a ‘transformative role’ in NHS 10-year plan
Responding to the announcement, leaders from across the pharmacy sector have welcomed the inclusion of pharmacists in the Government plans to support local care, prioritise prevention and deliver the 10-year plan.
Elen Jones, director of pharmacy at the RPS, said: ‘With the right investment and integration into neighbourhood health services under the plan, pharmacy teams can play a transformative role in improving population health and enabling better care across the NHS.’
Highlighting the need for the Government to use pharmacists’ expertise to support this shift in healthcare delivery, Gisela Abbam, chair of the GPhC, said: ‘Pharmacy in all healthcare settings – from community to primary to hospital care – is critical to improving patient outcomes and meeting the needs of their local communities.
‘Pharmacy teams working in community pharmacies are already successfully expanding access to NHS care in the heart of communities, through initiatives like Pharmacy First. Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians are also providing high-quality services in hospitals and in primary care that support people to get the best from their medicines and help to prevent ill-health.’
She added: ‘This plan comes at a time when pharmacies, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians are facing significant challenges. Pharmacy needs to be put on a resilient and stable footing for the future for this plan to succeed. We welcome the steps the Government has taken so far and we hope the ongoing support and investment needed to enable the pharmacy workforce to fulfil their increasing roles will be reflected in the upcoming workforce plan.’
Preventing hospital visits and admissions
Other pharmacy organisations paid particular attention to community pharmacy’s already unique position in local communities and the ability for the pharmacy profession to collaborate with healthcare colleagues and prevent hospital admissions.
Chief executive of the National Pharmacy Association Henry Gregg said community ‘pharmacies want to work with GPs, social workers and colleagues across the health service to provide better healthcare, nearer to people’s homes and take pressure off the NHS’.
Malcom Harrison, chief executive of the Company Chemists’ Association highlighted that the 10,000-strong community pharmacy network is ‘already driving a “neighbourhood health” agenda, delivering high-quality healthcare from within local communities’.
He added that expanding Pharmacy First and incorporating independent prescribing into the service was ‘a no-brainer’ and suggested that this would bring care closer to people’s homes, save millions of GP appointments and reduce unnecessary hospital visits’.
