BBC highlights pharmacy pressures as NHS GP plans announced
The BBC has today (Monday 8th May) published a news article alongside broadcast and interview pieces focused on the immense financial and operational challenges facing community pharmacies.
This follows many months of briefings and conversations with PSNC and others, along with interviews with community pharmacy owners.
We have been briefing journalists on the pressures facing the sector, as well as sharing closures data and analysis, and explaining what the community pharmacy sector needs going forwards.
The news article, along with coverage on BBC Breakfast featuring PSNC CEO Janet Morrison and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, also covered the benefits of a fully funded Pharmacy First approach.
Watch a clip of Janet’s interview with BBC News Health Editor Hugh Pym:
Also today, Government and the NHS have announced some of their plans to make it easier for patients to access GPs, including recruiting Care Navigators in General Practice who may direct patients to community pharmacies and other professionals.
This announcement is part of wider plans to overhaul primary care which are expected to be published this week and which PSNC, supported by the sector including LPCs and pharmacy onwers, has been campaigning to influence.
Janet Morrison, PSNC Chief Executive, said:
“For many months we have been telling Government and the NHS that they have a choice: to either let pharmacies continue to drown under the current pressures, or to invest in the sector and allow pharmacies to do even more to support patients and wider primary care.
Since submitting our business case to Government in March 2022, PSNC has particularly been campaigning for a fully-funded Pharmacy First approach: we all know how much more community pharmacies have to offer and how much patients could benefit from this.
But PSNC is clear that community pharmacies will only be able to offer extra support if the upcoming Government and NHS plans also include a significant investment in the sector: this is an absolute must to protect access to existing pharmacy services and to make sure pharmacies are there when patients need them. Pharmacies don’t have the capacity to do any more without extra financial backing.”
