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The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) has announced plans to survey members to help shape its response to the government’s consultation on the future of the NHS in England.
In a statement published on 21 October 2024, the Department of Health and Social Care launched a consultation on three big shifts in the way the NHS in England is provided: from hospital to community, analogue to digital and sickness to prevention.
Included in these proposals, the government said it wants to set up new neighbourhood health centres, which would include GPs and other primary care staff operating from one site, make a single patient record available via the NHS App and explore how smart watches could allow patients with diabetes or high blood pressure to monitor their own health from home.
The consultation on the proposals will run until early 2025, with a new ten-year plan for the NHS in England due to be published in the spring of 2025.
In response to the consultation, the RPS announced on 21 October 2024 that it would be issuing a survey to members to “feed in ideas or evidence” to shape the Society’s official response to the consultation.
Commenting on the consultation announcement, Tase Oputu, chair of the RPS English Pharmacy Board, said: “Medicines are a fundamental part of the health service and, with increasing prescription volumes, the ten-year health plan must consider how pharmacists can be enabled to support the best use of medicines across the system.
“The government has recognised the huge potential for pharmacist prescribing to enhance patient care and it must now make this a reality. Supporting patient access to community pharmacies should be at the heart of the new neighbourhood health service.”
“[There is] a pressing need to invest in hospital pharmacy, accelerating the roll-out of electronic prescribing and ensuring aseptic pharmacy sites are fit for the future of personalised medicines,” she added.
Commenting on the government’s plans, Amanda Pritchard, chief executive of NHS England, said: “The ten-year health plan is a chance to make the best practice, normal practice across the country. So, we will be carrying out the largest ever staff engagement exercise in NHS history and leaving no stone unturned as we seek to harness frontline views, alongside those of patients and the public, to ensure this happens.”
Wes Streeting, secretary of state for health and social care, added: “In order to save the things we love about the NHS, we need to change it. Our ten-year health plan will transform the NHS to make it fit for the future, and it will have patients’ and staff’s fingerprints all over it.”
