NHS survey reveals fewer than 5% of patients have been referred to community pharmacy from general practice

Fewer than 5% of patients in England were referred to community pharmacy by their GP practice, results of the NHS’s 2024 GP Patient Survey have shown.

The survey data, published by NHS England on 11 July 2024, show that, when asked ‘How did your GP practice deal with your request?’, referring to their most recent contact with the practice, 4.7% (n=24,114) of respondents to the question (n=515,642) said they were ‘told to go to a pharmacy’.

The majority of respondents (70.8%; n=365,231) said they were ‘booked in for an appointment’ with their GP while 20.3% (n=104,633) of respondents said they were ‘prescribed medication’.

This is the first year that this question has been asked in the annual multiple choice survey, which was sent to more than 2 million adults registered with GP practices in England and received around 700,000 responses in total.

The NHS Patient Survey website says that data from previous surveys are “not comparable” with the 2024 data, owing to changes to the questionnaire and its methodology.

In response to a question asking ‘How would you describe your experience of using pharmacy services’, which included collecting prescriptions, getting a vaccination and having blood pressure checked, the survey also revealed that the majority of the 609,392 respondents (86.8%; n=528,949) described their experience of pharmacy services as ‘good’, while 1.4% (n=8,323) of respondents rated their experience as ‘very poor’.

Out of 660,543 respondents to a question on whether they had done anything before contacting their GP practice, 14.1% (n=92,950) answered ‘I went to a pharmacy’.

A total of 39.4% (n=260,095) of respondents answered ‘I didn’t do anything before trying to get an appointment with my GP practice’, while 34.3% (n=226,462) of respondents said ‘I tried to treat myself’.

Participants were also asked what services they had used at a community pharmacy over the past 12 months; 1.4% (n=9,862) of 695,061 respondents said they had used a pharmacy ‘to get contraception without a GP prescription’ and 2.7% (n=18,908) said they had gone ‘to monitor my medication or get other support for a long-term health condition’.

The majority of respondents (75.8%; n=526,638) answered that they had gone ‘to pick up a prescription’.

Commenting on the data, Alastair Buxton, director of NHS Services at Community Pharmacy England, said: “There is still significant scope for more referrals from general practices to the Pharmacy First service. The service can only help alleviate the pressure on general practices if they refer appropriate patients to pharmacies and we continue to encourage all practices to engage with the service.

“We also need the NHS to provide more support to ensure referrals are made to the service and to undertake more advertising for the service.”