Joint Statement: Health Committee calls for funded workforce plan for pharmacy

Yesterday the Health and Social Care Select Committee backed the CCA’s call for a workforce plan for pharmacy to be outlined.

The CCA, together with the Association of Independent Multiple Pharmacies (AIMp), National Pharmacy Association and Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) have united to issue this joint statement, which follows a recent joint letter sent to the Health and Social Care Committee Chair the Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP.

“We strongly welcome the recommendation of MPs on the Health & Social Care Select Committee, for an urgent, funded workforce plan for pharmacy, which will ‘optimise workloads across primary care, reduce pressure on general practice and hospitals, and support integrated care systems’.

We recently wrote to the Chair of the Health Select committee, Jeremy Hunt MP, to highlight our continued concerns regarding the workforce challenges, coupled with 8-years of a real terms decrease in funding, that the community pharmacy sector is experiencing.

Pharmacies of all sizes are struggling and worried about both the availability of pharmacists, and about rapidly-inflating locum rates. Both of these could limit pharmacies’ ability to reach their full potential to both help patients and support the wider NHS.

We welcome the MPs’ recognition of these issues and urge the Government to take forward a long-term workforce development plan for pharmacy to start to address them. This, combined with sustainable funding for the sector, would mean that all pharmacies can continue offering the safe and high-quality services that patients and the NHS have come to rely on.”