Pharmacies are saving the NHS 38 million GP appointments a year

iNews

The findings from Community Pharmacy England’s 2024 Pharmacy Advice Audit, released today, highlight that pharmacies are providing several million walk-in consultations each year. Our report shows the scale of underfunded work pharmacies are taking on, including the number of GP appointments they are saving the NHS annually, and the huge demand pharmacies in England are facing for healthcare advice.

Key findings from the audit indicate:

• Community pharmacies across England deliver just over 69 million walk-in health advice consultations per year.
• This saves the NHS 38 million GP appointments every year.
• Pharmacies are also helping more than 4.3 million people a year who can’t access other parts of the NHS.
• Whilst 85% can be helped there and then, of those referred on, pharmacies identify around 2.7 million people a year needing urgent help.
• Pharmacy teams spend more than 2 hours a day providing these clinical consultations.
• But with 50% more informal consultations than in 2020, a significant amount of pharmacies’ capacity is being taken up by unfunded work.

Millions of people turn to their local community pharmacy for help and advice, particularly when struggling to get GP appointments. And whilst the NHS Pharmacy First service enables pharmacies to treat seven common conditions, over 1.3 million consultations each week fall outside its scope and are therefore unfunded.

Janet Morrison, Community Pharmacy England Chief Executive, said:

“Community pharmacy teams do an incredible job helping over a million people a week with a whole variety of health concerns and questions. Patients get vital and timely access to a healthcare professional, and it helps to reduce the burden on other parts of the NHS. This walk-in healthcare advice has never been more important as the public struggles to access many parts of the health service: and it’s no surprise that our data shows that more and more people are relying on it.

Unfortunately, much of this professional advice is simply not being paid for by the NHS. Community pharmacies are under intense financial, operational and other pressures – leading to thousands of pharmacy closures in recent years – and they simply cannot continue to do work for free.

It’s no surprise that the public are voting with their feet in favour of community pharmacies. What we need to do now is turn things around for community pharmacies so that they can keep doing this: staying open, helping millions of people every day, supporting local communities and easing the burden on the wider NHS. This can only happen if pharmacies are put on a sustainable economic footing.”

Read the full report and summary:

Pharmacy Advice Audit 2024: Full Report

Pharmacy Advice Audit 2024: A summary of findings

Coverage 

Pharmacies providing 38 million appointments as patients struggle to be seen by GPs | iNews