Malcolm Harrison, Chief Executive of the CCA
As we continue to review and refine how and what we send out to you, I thought that you might find it useful to have a summary of the highlights of what we, the CCA executive team, have been doing over the past month, on behalf of our members and for you, our LPC reps.
This week we were very pleased to co-host a fringe event at the Labour Party conference. We worked with colleagues from AIM, the NPA and PSNC to bring together parliamentarians, patient groups and other healthcare professionals to discuss how we should respond to the government’s vision for prevention, as set out in the recent Green Paper.
The event was well attended by senior stakeholders, and the discussion was focused and engagement high. There was consensus around the table that community pharmacies have an important role to play in prevention – and patient groups were keen to work with us to help inform their members and audiences about the full scope of skills that pharmacy teams offer. We are planning to hold a second event at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester on 30 October. We’ll be producing a policy paper, drawing on the discussion from both events, which we will share with you.
We’ve also now held two of our eight engagement events for LPC reps. We were pleased to welcome Lisa Simpson, Deputy Director of Community Pharmacy Strategy and Contracts at NHS England, to the first one in London. It was a great opportunity for everyone to hear directly from Lisa about the thinking behind the new Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (CPCF) and in particular the Community Pharmacist Consultation Service (CPCS). At our CCA board meeting this month we also welcomed Ed Waller, the Director at NHS England who is responsible for pharmacy, Jeannette Howe, Head of Pharmacy at the Department of Health and Social care, to explore the role that CCA members can play in delivering against both he CPCF and CPCS.
The CCA doesn’t underestimate the challenge ahead for the entire community pharmacy sector in delivering this significant change. We are committed to working in partnership with NHS England and other relevant partners wherever possible to do everything we can to support all community pharmacy contractors to successfully deliver these new opportunities. Our other partnership activity this month includes meeting with NHS Digital, to discuss the work of our own Digital Innovation Group and continuing to support the work of the the cross-sector Brexit group.
Like many of you, several of the CCA team have been preparing for the GPhC revalidation deadline in October by completing their reflective accounts and their peer discussions for. If you are attending one of our engagement events ahead of the deadline, it might provide an ideal opportunity to for a reflective account for your revalidation, if you have not yet completed one!
Finally, we have recently submitted our response to the long awaited DHSC consultation on community drug reimbursement reforms. You can read this response here – and also find our responses to other key consultations here.