Issue - meetings

Matthew Cole, Director of Public Health, presented the report and advised that the Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment (PNA) review was a statutory requirement and was undertaken every three years.  The PNA provided an assessment of the local need for pharmaceutical services and on this occasion there was no need to make any changes.

Councillor Carpenter raised the current coverage in the media about the potential for pharmacies being sited within GP surgeries and the provision and also the quality of the facilities within pharmacy shops to enable confidential discussions to be held.  Matthew Cole advised that pharmacies providing services such as smoking cessation and emergency contraception do require a private area to be available for consultations.  However, these may not always be very large rooms in some shops. 

Dr Mohi explained that the commissioning of pharmaceutical provision was the responsibility NHS England.

Councillor Carpenter said that overall there was a good level of service from pharmacies but felt the question could have been included for the public to comment on the provision and quality of consultation rooms in the pharmacies. 

It was expected that the incoming CQC accreditation of pharmacies would be defining what constitutes an acceptable room size for consultation.

Conor Burke commented that the PNA was a statutory requirement that was a process we used to inform commissioning but we could still use pharmacies and the Health and Wellbeing Strategy to look at how we can do things differently in the future.

Helen Jenner commented that she would have like to have seen the young inspectors used and their views sought more on pharmacies.  Matthew Cole agreed to take this on board.

The Chair commented that 91% of pharmacy users say the service they received was good or above.  There was also good local coverage. 

Francis Carroll asked about pharmacist availability to support the GP out-of-hours service and the GP hubs, for example at Barking Hospital, so that the patients do not have a delay in getting their prescriptions filled.  Anne Bristow explained that there were duty pharmacist arrangements.  Dr Mohi advised that both the GP hubs and the GP home visiting services prescribe and they do have medications at hand for immediate dispensing if they deemed it necessary.

Having received and discussed the report and PNA, the Board:

(i)  Noted the consultation results and findings:

a)  Barking and Dagenham HWB had 38 community pharmacies;

b)  This equated to about 19.6 community pharmacies per 100,000 population - which was lower than the average for London (22.3/100,000) and England (21.7/100,000);

c)  Of these community pharmacies, 79% were open weekday evenings, 97% were open on Saturdays, and 18% were open on Sundays;

d)  Half of the pharmacies in Barking and Dagenham were owned by independents, compared to 39% nationally;

e)  From a pharmacy user survey taken in the autumn last year (480 responses) 91% rated the service received from pharmacies in Barking and Dagenham as good or excellent; 82% indicated that they did not have a preferred pharmacy they  ...  view the full minutes text for item 111