South Tyneside CCG  have asked us to let pharmacy contractors in South Tyneside know about an Urgent Care Public Consultation which has now commenced.  The consultation is looking at how the access and treatment for local people can be significantly improved by the creation of a new urgent care ‘one stop shop’ at South Tyneside General Hospital.

The CCG are holding the public consultation over the next 12 weeks and are asking for views on a range of proposals that will help local healthcare professionals provide the best possible care for patients with an urgent care need.

You can find further details of the consultation including details of all the public meetings by clicking here:

Gateshead & South Tyneside LPC and Sunderland LPC jointly responded to the national Call to Action following on from events which were put on locally as well as feedback received directly from Contractors. 

A copy of our response can be found below.

The Call to Action consultation for improving health and patient care via community pharmacy closes on Tuesday 18th March. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to influence the way community pharmacy develops and operates in the future. Responses to this consultation will inform and shape the development of the community pharmacy contractual framework. The LPC therefore strongly encourages you to respond to this consultation. Number of responses received will carry weight.

You do not need to respond to every question in the consultation framework. The link to the consultation questionnaire is https://www.engage.england.nhs.uk/survey/7980adc7

Please do take the time to respond, however briefly, to this consultation.

Further to our message sent on the 11th February about the Call to Action Stakeholder events.  We have been informed by the LPN that they are cancelling their session that was scheduled for Wednesday 26th February due to small numbers.  If you had booked on the 26th February you will need to re-arrange to attend one of the other events.  

Places are still available on 25th February (Newburn) and 27th February (Morpeth).   To attend those you will need to contact the area team direct.  

Alternatively you can book on to the 4th March Event at East Boldon through the LPC website by clicking here

It is disappointing that one session has been cancelled due to the low numbers booked. This is community pharmacy’s opportunity to influence our own future. The LPC would urge you to book a place on one of the three sessions.

Do not rely on someone else to determine your future.

The LPC has worked with the LPN to bring you a Stakeholder event in our Area.  The event will be held on the 4th March at the Quality Hotel East Boldon.  Make sure you attend.  Full details can be found here.

Pharmacy teams may have read recently about a ‘Call to Action’ on community pharmacy launched this month by NHS England.

NHS England is the national commissioner of community pharmacy services and it is currently working on a strategy which will set out how it wants all primary care services to work in the future. 

Through the pharmacy Call to Action NHS England is seeking views and ideas on how community pharmacy services should be developed in the future as part of that strategy.

The Call to Action is extremely important because it is our chance to have a say in our future by telling our national commissioner how we believe our services should develop. Patients, GPs and other organisations will also be giving ideas to NHS England, so it’s crucial that we make our voice heard and that we show the benefits that pharmacies can and could deliver for the NHS.

The LPC will be working on its response to the Call to Action in a number of ways, including answering the questions set out by NHS England within it and talking to the local NHS England Area Team about how we think pharmacy services should be developed locally.

But we really need your help. To support our response we need to hear examples of how innovative or high quality community pharmacy services have made a real difference to your patients; or of where pharmacies have worked well with other local healthcare providers to support the care they offer. And if you have ideas on how pharmacy services in our area could be improved to better help patients, we want to hear about those too.

The LPC will also be sending some of your examples on to PSNC so that they too can use them to support their national response to the Call to Action.

You can send your thoughts, ideas and examples to the LPC  via our website using the form below or via our contact pages or better still look out for information about events we and the local Area Team will be running in the New Year and come along to talk to us. It will be really important for us to ensure that pharmacy’s views are heard at these events, and your support will be a vital part of that.

Dave Carter, Gateshead & South Tyneside LPC Chairman said:

“The NHS England Call to Action probably sounds like just another consultation that most pharmacies don’t really need to think about; but that couldn’t be further from the truth. This time, the future of community pharmacy really is at stake.

It’s no secret that the NHS has serious financial problems at the moment, and if we don’t tell our national commissioner and our local Area Teams how much we have to offer and what benefits our services can offer the NHS and patients in the future, we risk having services scaled back, rather than developed.

Of course the LPC and national organisations will be working very hard to do this on your behalf, but we need all the help we can get on this – the more examples of great practice we have and the more people we have talking about those, the better chance we have of making sure NHS England hears us loudly and clearly and comes up with a primary care strategy that has community pharmacies at its heart.”

PSNC Chief Executive, Sue Sharpe said:

"The launch of NHS England’s Call to Action on community pharmacy represents an important milestone for the sector in the reformed NHS. It gives us our biggest opportunity yet to shape pharmacy’s future, both by making our own views heard and by finding out more about what users and commissioners of our services think, and it is vital that we take it.

PSNC will be responding to the Call to Action to continue to make the case for the greater role we know pharmacies can play in improving patients’ health and making the NHS sustainable, but it will also be important for pharmacy to be heard at a local level. We have provided guidance and support for LPCs to help them to do that and in the New Year we will be hosting a number of local engagement events to seek their views and help them with their local responses and actions.

LPCs and PSNC also need help from pharmacies on this important piece of work though. PSNC set out its vision for community pharmacy this year describing how services could be developed across medicines optimisation, public health, self care and supporting independent living, and we need your examples of successful services to support that vision. You can share your thoughts and examples through your LPC or Regional Representative, and of course by talking directly to your local Area Team.”


A copy of the consultation document can be obtained by clicking HERE