Pharmacy Advice Audit
Published on: 23rd June 2020 | Updated on: 29th October 2024
Community pharmacy is the front door of the NHS and helps to deliver healthcare in local communities closer to home. Pharmacies not only provide services commissioned and paid for by the NHS, but they also provide free at the point of access, professional healthcare advice to any person who seeks it. The Pharmacy Advice Audit identifies the number of unfunded, professional consultations being carried out in community pharmacies.
More than a third (3,916) of community pharmacies in England took part in the 2024 Pharmacy Advice Audit, providing key information on the number, type, duration and outcome of consultations that occur daily in community pharmacy.
Data was provided for 61,837 patient consultations which are not part of an NHS-funded service, such as Pharmacy First. Participating pharmacies recorded information on all their patient consultations that fell outside of NHS services over the course of one day.
The data gathered has been extrapolated across the network of community pharmacies in England to determine the work being undertaken by the sector as a whole.
Findings
- The average pharmacy completes 21.7 unfunded consultations a day, which across England equates to just over 69 million walk-in health advice consultations per year.
- 56 million people a year go straight to a pharmacy as their first port of call.
- Over 4.3 million people a year present at community pharmacies because they are unable to access their preferred part of the healthcare system.
- Nearly 150,000 informal referrals are being made to pharmacies by GPs and NHS 111 every week, effectively removing more than £115 million worth of funding from the pharmacy network.
- Every week pharmacies help nearly 922,000 patients (70%) who are seeking clinical advice about symptoms, and a further 20% of patients who have questions about an existing medical condition.
- Over half a million consultations a week occur in community pharmacies for clinical advice alone, where no sale of a medicine is made.
- The average pharmacy spends more than 2 hours (133.4 minutes) a day providing unfunded healthcare advice to patients. This is a 78% increase on the time spent offering such advice in our 2020 audit.
- Pharmacists identify around 52,000 a week who have more urgent medical needs and are appropriately referred to another healthcare professional.
- More than half (55%) of people would have visited a GP surgery had they not been able to access a pharmacy. This means that every week pharmacies prevent more than 115 appointments for each GP practice in England – saving roughly 38 million GP appointments per year.
- Since 2020, community pharmacy has saved general practice a further 47% increase in patients using their services.
Many thanks to all pharmacy teams who took part this year and to LPCs for supporting engagement with the audit.
Resources
Pharmacy Advice Audit 2024: Full Report
Pharmacy Advice Audit 2024: A summary of findings
Graphics for use on social media
Our previous audits
Between 31st January and 11th March 2022, 4,139 community pharmacies in England took part in Community Pharmacy England’s third Pharmacy Advice Audit, the findings of which clearly demonstrate that patients and the public are now more reliant than ever before on pharmacies for healthcare advice.
The pharmacies recorded all consultations over one day (or for however long it took them to reach 20 consultations). The participating pharmacy teams were asked to note why the patient had come to the pharmacy, what the consultation was for, the amount of time spent on the consultation, the outcome of the consultation, the severity of the presenting complaint, and where the patient would have gone if pharmacy advice had not been readily available.
Key findings include:
- More than 1.2 million informal consultations a week – or 65 million a year – are taking place in England’s community pharmacies. This is a notable increase on the findings of last year’s audit.
- Every week, pharmacies help over 865,000 patients who are presenting at the pharmacy for clinical advice about symptoms and over 251,000 patients who have questions about an existing medical condition.
- The average staff time per consultation was nearly six minutes.
- Nearly a quarter of a million consultations are carried out in community pharmacy every week because patients are unable to access their preferred part of the healthcare system.
- Almost half of patients reported that if they did not have easy access to a pharmacy, they would have visited their GP. As such, we can estimate that pharmacy advice will save an incredible 32.2 million GP appointments over the course of the year.
- Over half a million consultations a week occur in each community pharmacy for clinical advice alone, where no sale of a medicine is made.
- Community pharmacists identify 2.5 million patients a year needing urgent assessment.
- More and more people are now using pharmacy as their first port of call: 80.3% of the consultations recorded in the 2022 audit were the result of self-referrals, compared to 76% in 2021.
Resources
Community Pharmacy England Pharmacy Advice Audit 2022: Full Report
Community Pharmacy England Pharmacy Advice Audit 2022: A summary of findings
Social media tiles: (click to enlarge, right-click to save image)
Summary and key findings
Early in 2021, 5,830 community pharmacies took part in a Community Pharmacy England audit to try to quantify the number of informal patient consultations happening in their pharmacy. The pharmacies carried out the audit between 25th January and 12th February 2021 and between them they recorded data on 114,898 patient consultations. The audit enabled Community Pharmacy England to measure the reliance that the public has had on pharmacies through the COVID-19 pandemic, and the additional pressure that this has put on pharmacy teams.
- On average, pharmacies undertake 17 consultation per day / 1,125,540 consultations per week / more than 58 million per year.
- Each week, just under 130,000 informal referrals from General Practice and NHS11 are received into pharmacy.
- Every week pharmacies provided advice to over 730,000 people (nearly 38 million people per year) seeking advice for symptoms.
- Every week pharmacies provide advice to over 263,000 people (13.6 million people per year) seeking advice about an existing medical condition.
- On average, each consultation took just over 5 minutes – this means 90 minutes per day are spent providing these clinical consultations.
- Almost a quarter (24%) of the pharmacy consultations also included advice and support related to COVID-19 and these consultations took on average 20% longer than a non-COVID-19 consultation.
- If the community pharmacy had not been there, 50% of patients reported they would have visited their GP, resulting in an additional 74 appointments in each GP practice each week in England.
- An additional 70,000 people (3.3. million people per year) would go to A&E or an NHS walk-in centre every week if they could not get advice from their pharmacy.
Resources on the 2021 audit findings
Community Pharmacy England Pharmacy Advice Audit 2021: Full Report
A complete report containing all results and analysis of the data gathered as part of the 2021 Pharmacy Advice Audit.
Community Pharmacy England Pharmacy Advice Audit 2021: A summary of findings
A summary of the findings from the 2021 Pharmacy Advice Audit.
Infographic aimed at MPs: Community Pharmacy Consultations Update
A one-page infographic featuring the key statistics from Community Pharmacy England’s 2021 Pharmacy Advice Audit findings.
Social media tiles: (click to enlarge, right-click to save image)
Summary and key findings
In June and July 2020 more than 9,400 pharmacies in England took part in Community Pharmacy England’s audit of the informal patient consultations that happen in community pharmacy – these are consultations happening outside the Community Pharmacist Consultation Service (CPCS) or any other commissioned services.
Over a single day, pharmacies recorded a total of 198,043 patient consultations, which revealed that:
- The average staff time per consultation was just over 5 minutes;
- Around 10% (approx. 20,900) of the consultations were initiated with the non-pharmacist and referred to the pharmacist – this meant for longer total consultation times;
- Consultations initiated with a pharmacist took an average of 5.3 minutes pharmacist time;
- Consultations initiated with a non-pharmacist took an average of 4 minutes, with 19% referred to the community pharmacist where on average a further 4.3 minutes was spent with the patient; and
- Around 75 minutes per day, per pharmacy, is spent providing these consultations.
Resources on the 2020 audit findings
Community Pharmacy England Pharmacy Advice Audit 2020 – Full Report
A complete report containing all results and analysis of the data gathered as part of the Pharmacy Advice Audit.
Community Pharmacy England Briefing 027/20: Summary of the findings from Community Pharmacy England’s Pharmacy Advice Audit
A summary of the findings from the Pharmacy Advice Audit run by Community Pharmacy England in June and July 2020.
Clinical Advice in Community Pharmacies: Findings from a national audit
A PowerPoint presentation making use of the findings from the Community Pharmacy England Pharmacy Advice Audit to showcase community pharmacy’s value to key stakeholders.
Infographic
A one-page infographic featuring the key statistics from the audit findings. Three version are available to download and use.
Image Infographic: Community Pharmacy Consultations (JPG)
A4 Digital Infographic: Community Pharmacy Consultations
A4 Print Infographic: Community Pharmacy Consultations
Social media tiles (click to enlarge, right-click to save image)
For more information on this topic please email comms.team@cpe.org.uk
