Agenda item

Since April 2013, every Health & Wellbeing Board in England has had a statutory responsibility to publish, and keep up to date, a statement of the needs for pharmaceutical services in their area. This is referred to as the Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment (PNA). The refreshed PNAs therefore need to be signed-off and published by 31st March 2018.

(Please note that the appendices are provided in the information pack)

(Councillor Graham Jones declared an interest in the item by virtue of the fact he was a pharmacy contractor, and reported that as his interest was personal and a disclosable pecuniary or other registrable interest, he would leave the meeting during discussion of the item. Councillor Jones left the meeting at 10.52am.)

The Board considered a report (Agenda Item 10) which presented the refreshed Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment (PNA) for West Berkshire. A PNA was the statement of the needs of pharmaceutical services of the population in a specific area. It set out a statement of the pharmaceutical services which were provided, together with when and where these were available to a given population. The PNA also considered whether there were any gaps in the delivery of pharmaceutical services and was used by NHS England to make decisions on which NHS-funded services should be provided by local community pharmacies. The PNA could also be used to inform commissioners, such as local authorities and Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), who might wish to procure additional services from pharmacies to meet local health priorities.

Jo Jeffries, in introducing the item, advised that the document was the post-consultation draft and had received a small number of responses, mainly from professionals. Some minor amendments had been made as a result of the comments to improve the clarity of the document.

A query had been received from the Local Pharmaceutical Committee that the Board provide a steer on commissioning intentions outside of the contract with NHS England. Jo Jeffries noted that the Council’s Public Health Team already worked closely with pharmacies.

Rachael Wardell advised that there were no pots of funding available for the Board to deploy in new ways and suggested that the Board considers alignment of resources and further consideration to how pharmacies could support the Board to implement its Strategy.

Andrew Sharp suggested that for future iterations of the PNA, further consultation be undertaken to ensure that there was a wider understanding of its importance.

RESOLVED that the Board formally approves the Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment and adopt it for 2018-2021.