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<p>The Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework: 2019 to 2024 commits £2.592 billion each year to the sector and in September 2022, we announced a one-off £100 million investment. On the 9 May, as part of the ‘Delivery plan for recovering access to primary care’ (Primary Care Recovery Plan), a further investment of up to £645 million over two years was announced to expand services offered by community pharmacy.</p><p>NHS England (formerly Health Education England) conduct an annual survey of the community pharmacy workforce to inform future service planning and investment decisions. NHS England are currently analysing data gathered from the 2022 survey and the results will be published in due course.</p><p>In 2021, there were 27,406 pharmacists working in community pharmacy, filling 20,489 full-time equivalent posts. Across all sectors, the number of registered pharmacists in England has increased by 82% since 2010 (from 28,984 to 52,780 (31 March 2023)). That’s nearly 24,000 more pharmacists registered in England than in 2010.</p><p>The number of pharmacy training places annually is uncapped. In England, each year around 2,500 pharmacists enter training and the net increase in pharmacists practicing across all sectors has increased by around 1,400 per year since 2016.</p><p>Pharmacists are highly qualified essential members of the healthcare team. From 2026, all pharmacists will qualify with a prescribing qualification. We are also training approximately 3,000 pharmacists to be independent prescribers in each year until 2024. Furthermore, NHS England recently announced new clinical examination skills training for community pharmacists. This will build on community pharmacists’ existing skills and act as a refresher for those not currently delivering these types of service. 10,000 places will be available until March 2024.</p><p>When commissioning new services, any additional training requirements are considered and NHS England are investing £15.9 million over the next four years to support the expansion of existing frontline pharmacy staff in primary and community care. This is to ensure they have the skills and competence to deliver any future services.</p><p>The primary care recovery plan included pharmacy technicians, including work to clarify the roles of pharmacy professionals and enable a better use of skill mix. This is alongside work to enable pharmacy technicians to administer and supply medicines under patient group directions. This expansion is underpinned by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) confirmation that services delivered by registered pharmacy technicians are exempt from VAT so we will revise NHS service specifications to support delivery by pharmacy technicians, recognising their valuable role in clinical service delivery.</p> |