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If Labour is going to deliver its vision for the health service, it will need a clear funding and contracting model both nationally and locally, warns Nick Kaye…

The 10-year plan for the NHS in England is finally here but what does it mean for us? Are we even mentioned?

Well, yes we are. And it appears that as community pharmacies, we will have a larger role in providing clinical care for the populations we serve.

We will also be evolving from primarily dispensing to delivering clinical services. This certainly does fit the rhetoric that has been coming from health leaders from all four UK nations for years – community pharmacy the “untaped clinical resource”. This must be a good thing, right?

So, what are we going to be asked to do? If you haven’t had chance to read it yet, let me give you some highlights. According to the Plan, community pharmacy will have a core role in ‘Neighbourhood Health Centres’. It states:

• Pharmacies will become integral to new local health hubs, open 12 hours a day, six days a week, as part of a multidisciplinary team including GPs, nurses, social workers.

And….

• Over the next five years, they’ll evolve from primarily dispensing to delivering clinical services: diagnosing, treating and managing conditions like obesity, hypertension, cholesterol, minor ailments and even contraception.

We will be helping to manage long-term conditions (LTCs)…

• Pharmacists will support patients with complex medication regimens and monitor long-term conditions.

• Many will become independent prescribers, with all new pharmacists set to qualify as such from September 2026, enabling them to prescribe for LTCs directly. 

Community pharmacies will expand into public health and preventive services. There will be…

• Significant growth in pharmacy-based screening services, including for cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

• Pharmacies will ramp up vaccine delivery, especially HPV catch-up jabs (from 2026), plus contraception and seasonal vaccines.

Community pharmacies will be asked to use technological and digital to integrate within the NHS system.

• Pharmacies will be linked to the NHS single patient record (between now and 2028), improving information sharing with GPs.

• The NHS App will allow patients to book pharmacy services, manage meds and receive proactive condition advice, all accessible via the “digital front door”.

• Digital tools will also support dispensing automation, hub-and-spoke models and streamlined workflows.

To be fair, this is a plan in which community pharmacy looks as if it will be embedded within the NHS for years to come. This plan fits Wes Streeting’s three-pillar vison for the NHS – care closer to home, digital not analogue and prevention.

I’m really pleased that community pharmacy seems to be mentioned as a key pillar, but I do believe there could be risk if this continued evolution of our profession is not handled properly at national and local levels.

Exciting and terrifying!

I say this because I see the growing importance of integrated neighbourhood teams (INTs) locally and we will need to think differently about how we get paid for the work we are asked to do.

I believe we are going to start seeing hyper-localised commissioning. What does that mean for you? As independents, we should be best placed to access the opportunities that this brings, but are you ready to step up into that space as a leader?

Let’s take an example. Neighbourhood Health Centres – what does that mean? I bet if I asked five people, I would get five different answers. Is it a physical health centre with everything is co-located?

Is it a virtual network of providers across a geography (including community pharmacy) being asked to offer the population services? Is it a single point of co-ordination using community assets and online tools to deliver services and care?

The answer, I think, is probably all of the above, which is at the same time exciting and terrifying!

As an example, Kernow (the Cornish name for Cornwall) integrated care board has ringfenced £18 million over three years to go to INTs, which I believe will be the driving force of these changes locally. And that £18 million is only the start.

There are only 90 community pharmacies in Kernow ICB, so how is our LPC doing in this local space? Well, there’s always room for improvement but we are on the strategic/oversight board for INTs and the full ICB board will get a report in September on how community pharmacy will be part of INTs.

We have a provider company ready to hold those contracts, so I would say we are as well placed as we can be. And I know up and down the country, LPCs are doing the same and more, but locally and nationally, they can’t do it without you, so how are you going to raise your voice locally and nationally?

How are you going to make sure that community pharmacy is seen and heard? Are you going to stand for your PCN lead role? LPC committee? Committee Pharmacy England rep? NPA board?

I, more than most, understand the toll these roles can take but we all have a responsibility to raise the profile of community pharmacy now or this opportunity will be lost.

So, I believe that for community pharmacy, the 10-year plan means becoming an increasingly recognised clinical pillar of local healthcare, prescribing, monitoring, preventing and treating, anchored in digital integration and public health.

But critically, delivering this vision sustainably hinges on two critical things; a clear funding and contracting model, nationally and locally, which has to lead to a practical implementation of the Plan.

However painful this may be, we need to see this as an opportunity and step up and into that space, because doing what we have always done will not be an option for which strong leadership at all levels will be needed.

Nick Kaye is a National Pharmacy Association board member and pharmacist based in Newquay. These are his personal views.