All-Party Pharmacy Group publishes new “The Future of Pharmacy Manifesto” report - 23 January 2023

A new report (published on 23 January 2023) by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Pharmacy calls for “urgent action” to deliver on the potential of pharmacy teams and relieve significant funding and workforce pressures.

The report highlights the need for a new “strategic vision” for pharmacy and highlights opportunities for the pharmacy network to be empowered to deliver even more for patients. However, the manifesto also underlines the very real risk that this opportunity may be lost if significant and ongoing pressures are not addressed.

The recommendations are based on written and oral evidence gathered from frontline pharmacists, GPs, professional bodies and healthcare experts.  

To harness the potential of pharmacy, the report recommendations that:

  • The Government must take urgent action to relieve the funding pressures on the community pharmacy sector in the short term and review the long term funding model for pharmacy

  • The Government must harness the power of pharmacy to help the NHS deal with the COVID-19 backlog and the UK’s growing healthcare challenges

  • Future commissioning and funding must recognise that community pharmacy is the front door to the NHS for many patients

  • The DHSC and NHS England must urgently re-evaluate the current and long-term workforce needs of the entire health and social care system, including pharmacy

  • The Government should build on current commitments to provide funded independent prescriber training to ensure all existing pharmacists can train as independent prescribers if they so choose

  • For this ambitious new vision to be realised, community pharmacy must be placed at the heart of decision-making and policy development

Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Pharmacy, Taiwo Owatemi MP said:

“There is a tremendous opportunity for ministers to empower local pharmacies and pharmacy teams to help even more patients and use their skills to support efforts to clear NHS backlogs. But right now pharmacies are being squeezed by a combination of funding and workforce pressures.  People are often shocked to learn how many local pharmacies are lost each year due to financial pressure. If ever there was a time to properly fund and support our pharmacies it is now.”