Healthwatch Southend continues to hear that local people are having problems making appointments in general practice. As part of the national approach to improving access to general practice, community pharmacists are paid for diagnosing and treating 7 conditions. The scheme is known as Pharmacy First and was launched in April 2024. We wanted to see whether this was making any difference
Summary
Healthwatch Southend acts as the independent voice of local people who use NHS and care services. We capture the lived experience of local people, which can be used to improve services. We know from other surveys that local people seem to value their community pharmacies, which ought to help with people’s confidence in seeing a pharmacist rather than a GP. We wanted to see what was working well with the Pharmacy First scheme, and any challenges local people are facing with it.
Key Findings
We found that there is much opportunity to deliver care closer to the patient by using community pharmacists, alongside other clinicians in primary care.
Our survey suggests that patients are largely comfortable with this concept, although there are some concerns about some of the conditions included and the safety of the service.
Our report has been shared with Healthwatch England, who are conducting some national engagement to inform the future of community pharmacy services.
We will also aim to get feedback from local community pharmacists and general practitioners to complement this report.
What happens next?
We will revisit the recommendations in this report during 2026/27 to understand what actions have taken place.
We have sent the report to the Mid and South Essex Integrated Care Board (ICB), and will await to hear a response from them.
Click below to download the full reportÂ
For more information, please email info@healthwatchsouthend.co.uk or call 01702 416320.