In a recent development to healthcare provision in England, the NHS Community Pharmacist Consultation Service (CPCS) is being broadened to now include referrals from GPs. The model will allow GPs to refer patients to community pharmacies for consultations for minor illnesses. Those pharmacy contractors who are registered to offer the CPCS service do not need to re-register to receive GP referrals because this is simply a development of the Advanced Service model (i.e. moving away from the pilot service paradigm).
Discussions between local providers of healthcare in England are essential in order to achieve effective service roll out. For example, GPs can decide if they would like to make CPCS referrals in the first place and if so then active dialogue between pharmacy outlets is a must.
A range of stakeholders will be involved in alignment decisions; for instance pharmacy contractors themselves, the respective Primary Care Network, the NHS, members of the local GP team plus the Local Pharmaceutical Committee (LPC). Clearly, as the support network for service delivery expands, more GP referrals should take place in the early parts of 2021 onwards.
The PSNC Director of NHS Services, Mr Alastair Buxton, commented:
“Enabling the GP referral pathway into the Community Pharmacist Consultation Service late last year was a strategically significant development of the service. Some general practices have already recognised its value and have worked with the NHS and LPCs to implement it locally, but the need for local implementation planning at a time when primary care is already very busy always meant there would be a phased adoption by general practices, rather than a big bang start.
We hope this short animation is a useful resource for LPCs and the NHS to use in engaging more practices and other stakeholders to support the rollout of the pathway.”
The short animation Mr Buxton refers to can be located here.
This appears to be an exciting development to support the delivery of excellent patient care in the heart of the community and as such we wish all those involved the best of luck at the beginning of 2021 and beyond.
