DOPT Update for Community Pharmacy Contractors and Teams

Dear all,

GMLPC are aware of the significant challenges you are facing in terms of finance, workforce and increased workload. I am writing to provide assurance that we are working to raise these concerns to the GM ICS, MPs and Healthwatch and doing extensive work locally to address these issues and highlighting the risks to yourselves, our local communities and the wider NHS. On behalf of GMLPC,  I also want to say thank you for your continued commitment and hard work to continue providing high quality services despite the challenges and pressures  you are facing.

We  have and will continue to write to MPs on your behalf. In due course, we will  also provide a template letter for you to use to write to your own MP. It is critical that we all collectively highlight the risks and ask for the support we need as a matter of urgency. We have met James Daly MP. Barbara Keeley MP, Afzal Khan MP, Chris Clarkson MP have all attended the national APPG Hypertension event and we are most grateful for MPs that have engaged and supported Community Pharmacy.

I also encourage you all to complete the Sit rep pressures form which you receive via email. The collection of data is critical to enable the LPCs to escalate issues on your behalf, the report only needs to be completed by exception if there are pressures. At the moment, we have a very low number of Pharmacies reporting which does not help the system to understand the level of pressures we are seeing.

We will be organising a virtual contractor event in the coming weeks to enable GMLPC to  listen to your key concerns and issues as we are aware of the critical issues.  If you have any feedback you wish to share please send this to myself, enquiries@gmlpc.org.uk or contact any member of the LPC/office team. We are here for you all.

We also work closely with the Primary Care Provider Board to develop a unified voice for all of Primary Care  Providers within GM ICS to support development of the Primary Care Strategy and address pressures in the system, The new website is available here https://gmpcb.org.uk/. More information about the GM Integrated Care system can be found here

In addition, The Community Pharmacy Provider Board (Bolton LPC, GMLPC and CHL) are working together with GM ICS colleagues on a number of key initiatives for the benefit of Pharmacy contractors and Pharmacy teams. We also are grateful to our GM ICS colleagues for their support and engagement.

• Safety and security monies for Pharmacy contractors
• Working with GM ICS leads to address the issues with antibiotic supply including media engagement by Fin McCaul (Chair) and DOPT with the ICS e.g. MEN and BBC radio coverage
• Confirmed funding  from the GM ICS for the rollout of the GM Care Record across all Community Pharmacies (we will provide more details in due course)
• Healthy Living Pharmacy leadership and champion training funding acquired
• Continued work on the deployment and rollout of nationally commissioned services such bas GP CPCS, Hypertension Case finding and the SCS service. CPPB have also acquired IT funding for PharmOutcomes, Further planning is taking place to support rollout of the Pharmacy PGD contraception service in the near future.
• Continued escalation of system pressures to the  GM ICS, NW region and PSNC on your behalf
• Implementation  of the GM ICS GP/Pharmacy interface principles document for local implementation to help reduce unnecessary burden and promote efficiencies to release capacity. The update is available here .The full document which you can use to facilitate local discussions is available here

We will continue to work on your behalf and keep you updated.

Luvjit Kandula