Agenda item

The Divisional Director, Public Health, submits a report on the public consultation currently being undertaken on the Draft Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment (PNA).  The consultation started on 29 September 2014 and was originally scheduled to end on 28 November 2014, but this has now been extended to 12 December 2014, to ensure everyone gets the benefit of a 60 day consultation period in which to submit their comments.

The Commission is asked to consider particularly Section 13 - conclusions and draft recommendations of the Summary document (Page ???) and to give views on these and any matters within the scope of the PNA.

The Divisional Director, Public Health, submitted a report on the public consultation currently being undertaken on the Draft Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment (PNA).  The consultation started on 29 September 2014 and was originally scheduled to end on 28 November 2014, but it had now been extended to 12 December 2014, to ensure that everyone had the benefit of a 60 day consultation period in which to submit their comments.  Members were requested to consider the conclusions and draft recommendations outlined in Section 13 of the consultation document and to give views on these and any matters within the scope of the PNA.

The Divisional Director stated that:-

• From 1 April 2013 every Health and Wellbeing Board in England had a statutory responsibility to keep an up to date statement of the needs for pharmaceutical services of the population in its area, known as the PNA.

• The first PNA must be issued by 1 April 2015 and then subsequently kept up to date by supplementary statements detailing any changes.

• The PNA did not cover pharmacies in hospitals or prisons.

• There appeared to be enough pharmacies for the total population and no one was required to travel excessive distances to access one.  However, some pharmacies were outside the City boundary and those within the City were not evenly distributed resulting in clusters of pharmacies in localised areas.

The Healthwatch representative commented on the need for different language skills in pharmacies situated in the east and west areas of the City reflecting the different demographics of each area.  It was also suggested that there was an opportunity for pharmacies to be utilised to give advice on such issues as healthy fasting for patients with multiple health conditions (based upon national guidance), travelling abroad and avoiding returning with communicable diseases, tuberculosis, rickets and oral health in children etc to reflect local requirements.  An Equality Impact Assessment should also be prepared at the end of consultation process.

Following discussion of the report, the Divisional Director made the following responses and comments:-

• The provision of advice on specific topics could be included in the essential services contract with pharmacies.  NHS England currently held the responsibility for all pharmacy contracts and there would need to be a shift in this responsibility to allow local authorities to have more control over the issues that were relevant to local health issues.

• The outcomes of the PNA would provide NHS England with the information necessary to assess whether there was a need for more pharmacies in the City.

• The pharmacies in Leicester were mixture of large national chains, some local chains and a number of independent operators.  The distribution and clustering of pharmacies within the City had resulted from historical commercial decisions by the owners/operators o the pharmacies.

• There were a number of consultation meetings taking place and comments on the consultation could also be submitted through the Council’s website.

Members’ comments concerning pharmacies being utilised to provide additional specialist advice on health issues as a mechanism to contribute in helping to divert patients away from GPs and other health services in line with the aims of the Better Care Together Programme was noted and would be fed into the process.

The Chair commented that travelling 1-2 miles to access a pharmacy was more difficult in areas of deprivation were there was generally less access to the use of a car, a larger proportion of children in the population and a prevalence of more health inequalities.

RESOLVED:

1)         That the consultation process for the PNA be considered appropriate.

2)         That the Commission receive an executive summary of the outcome of the consultation process on the PNA outlining the recommendations and giving a synopsis of those consulted and the numbers of responses.