According to reports from July this year community pharmacies will be expected to offer advice on newly prescribed medicines to patients discharged from hospital, in a bid to reduce hospital readmissions.
On Sunday 23rd January the Department of Health and Social Care and the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) announced an update to the five-year Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (CPCF).
According to the Framework hospitals will be able to digitally refer patients to their pharmacy if they believe they need support with their newly prescribed medicines or changed prescriptions.
A spokesperson said that under the new NHS Discharge Medicines Service pharmacies will be asked to complete a one-off consultation with the patient and/or carer.
It is not yet clear as yet how much pharmacies will be remunerated for providing the new service, but they it is believed that they will “receive a fee” for every referral they complete.
Other new services that are due to be rolled out sometime this year include extensions to the Community Pharmacist Consultation Service (CPCS) – under which GP practices will refer patients to community pharmacy and launching referrals for urgent medicine supply from NHS 111 online, a hepatitis C testing service and four NHS travel vaccines that are currently provided by some GP practices