The 10 Year Health Plan sets out ambitions to deliver more easily accessible care closer to home, with a focus on addressing health inequalities — which will be vital to improving confidence to self-care across all demographics. It highlights the vital role that pharmacy will play in the launch of a ‘Neighbourhood Health Service’, rolled out across the country, bringing healthcare to people’s doorsteps.
What is a ‘Neighbourhood Health Service’ and how will it be delivered?
A neighbourhood health service will bring together care at a local level through patient-centred teams located in community settings. Not only is this better for patient outcomes and experience, but it will also alleviate pressure off the wider health and care system.
The neighbourhood health service will be delivered by integrated neighbourhood teams, which will bring together professionals across a range of organisations to offer holistic support, co-located within new neighbourhood health centres. The aim is to establish a neighbourhood health centre in every community to offer a wide variety of services 12 hours a day, six days a week. These centres will provide health and care support, as well as offering services like smoking cessation and weight management services.
What is the role of community pharmacy?
Pharmacy will have a vital role to play in the neighbourhood health service, bringing ‘health to the heart of the high street’. Over the next five years, the Government wants to move the focus of community pharmacy away from largely dispensing medicines and instead being seen as integral to the neighbourhood health agenda, offering more clinical services.
As community pharmacists become able to independently prescribe, the Government will increase their role in managing people with long-term conditions and other healthcare issues. Community pharmacy will be given a bigger role in prevention and over time, will be securely joined up to the Single Patient Record to support joined-up integrated care for patients.
Pharmacists will be vital in supporting the Government’s commitment to make emergency hormonal contraception freely available from community pharmacists by the end of 2025. Over the next five years, the Government will also look to modernise the approach to dispensing medicines by making better use of available technology.