More than 125,000 Pharmacy First consultations delivered

Pharmacy press

In a written Parliamentary answer about the Pharmacy First service, Pharmacy Minister Dame Andrea Leadsom stated that community pharmacies have “claimed more than 125,000 clinical pathways consultations for February”.

We were asked to comment on this figure.

Our Director of NHS Services, Alastair Buxton, said:

“It’s excellent to hear how many patients are already being helped by Pharmacy First; this is a big vote of confidence from the public.

This early success and positive feedback from patients is all the more incredible as pharmacies faced significant IT issues over the last couple of months. Pharmacy owners and their teams have overcome those challenges, but their ability to pass the monthly threshold levels for clinical pathways consultations continues to be an area of risk and we will be watching this closely as more NHS data becomes available.

Over time we want to see the service expand so that even more people can make use of the expertise of pharmacists. In the meantime, we continue to push DHSC and NHS England to undertake more communications activity to increase the public’s awareness of the service.”