The NHS Pharmacy Contraception Service will allow women to get contraceptive pills from their pharmacist. NHSE has announced Tier 1 of the service will launch from April 24th.
A CCA spokesperson said:
“Community pharmacy has a huge potential to meet the contraceptive needs of women, increasing access and creating much needed capacity across primary care. We have previously highlighted the potential to transfer at least 2 million GP appointments a year to community pharmacy (see CCA prospectus1).
Pushing through the rollout of this service, despite the warnings of the negotiator, representative bodies, and contractors shows a worrying disregard for the reality within the community pharmacy sector. The existing contractual agreement was finalised before the pandemic, rampant inflation, ever growing workloads, and continuing pressures on businesses. Whilst many pharmacies will no-doubt do their best to meet patient needs, the funding of community pharmacy is broken and needs to fundamentally change.
With ambitious commissioning, joint implementation with the sector, and the critical new investment needed, community pharmacy could make a huge impact on women’s contraceptive care. Pharmacy has a history of delivering at scale, and at speed. But the sector cannot continue on goodwill alone.”
1 – CCA, CCA Prospectus – A Future for Community Pharmacy, available here.