The PSNC will use its community pharmacy contractual framework talks with the government to press for the inclusion of a national emergency hormonal contraception and stop-smoking service.

Pharmacy’s negotiator and its subcommittees met last week to discuss how to proceed with high-level discussions with NHS England and Department of Health and Social Care on moving towards a service-based pharmacy contract.

The PSNC said it was also keen to get pharmacies across England commissioned to provide health checks, blood pressure measurement and hypertension and atrial fibrillation identification.

The national commissioning of health checks would see pharmacists increasingly following up with patients through a personalised wellbeing plan.

“The service development subcommittee spent most of its meeting discussing the revision of PSNC’s service development proposals. These were originally developed in 2017 and they did not include proposals for nationally commissioned urgent care or public health services as, at that time, NHS England and the DHSC saw commissioning of such services as local, not national, priorities,” the PSNC said.

“Work to develop a new NHS long-term plan and discussions with NHS England officials have highlighted a new focus on both these areas, so the subcommittee considered additions to the range of service development options in these areas.”

The discussions will revolve around getting community pharmacy playing an integral role in the self-care and urgent care agenda through programmes such as the urgent medicines supply advanced service, digital minor illness referral service and enhanced minor illness service.

The PSNC is also keen to ensure antidepressants and other mental health medicines are part of the new medicine service and said it was keen for Falsified Medicines Directive costs “to be on the table for discussion as part of 2019/20 contract negotiations.”

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