Services Database Pharmacy First Service

The Pharmacy First Service is primarily designed as a “walk in” service so that patients exempt from prescription charges of all ages can access self-care advice for the treatment of minor ailments and, where appropriate, be supplied with over the counter medicines, without the requirement to attend their GP practice for an appointment and prescription.

This service is available to patients exempt from prescription charges who are registered with a participating General Practice in the Black Country geography (Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton). This service is also available to patients exempt from prescription charges who are registered with a participating General Practice in West Birmingham until March 2023.

This service is also available to people seeking asylum, who have not yet registered with a GP practice and who currently reside in ‘Contingency’ Initial Accommodation or ‘pre-dispersal’ accommodation (currently this includes hotels, repurposed MoD facilities, student, and other self-contained accommodation), within the Black Country and West Birmingham geography.

People seeking asylum who have not yet registered with a GP practice can be provided with advice and/or treatment and signposted to a local GP practice for NHS registration.
Patients can access the scheme up to a maximum of 6 times in a 12-month period.

The Pharmacy First Service aims to:
• Support patients to self-manage their condition and recover quickly from episodes of ill health, that are
suitable for management in a community pharmacy setting.
• Ensure that patients have a positive experience of care in a community pharmacy setting.
• Enable more patients to access advice and medicines where appropriate from the NHS without requiring a
GP appointment or A&E/urgent care visit to provide a prescription.
• Release capacity in other healthcare setting by providing convenient access to advice and treatment in
community pharmacy.
• Divert patients with specified minor ailments from general practice and other urgent care settings into
community pharmacy where the patient can be seen and treated in a single episode of care.
This service is only available for patients presenting with identified symptoms as per the minor ailment conditions
and medicines included within appendix 3 and 4 of this specification.
Management of these conditions is set out in the treatment protocols in Appen