A community pharmacy campaign: social media action day 24 hours in pharmacy Today - Join in24/3/2016  A community pharmacy campaign: social media action day is occurring today on twitter. It is being supported by pharmacists and pharmacy organisations all over the country. The 24 hour twitter event is hoping to capture everything the profession does and delivers for patients, the NHS and other healthcare colleagues in 24 hours of tweets using the hashtag #pharmacy24
You can find out more and by clicking here. When tweeting don't forget to follow the LPC to ensure you always get up to date news.
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 The Department of Health (DH) has confirmed that it will extend its consultation on community pharmacy in 2016/17 and beyond for two months until 24th May.
The decision follows a request for the extension from PSNC in order to give time to work through the complex proposals being consulted on. The consultation was launched via a public letter to PSNC sent on 17th December 2015. The letter set out a number of proposals for the sector including a reduction in funding of £170m for 2016/17, plans to enable all pharmacies to have access to hub and spoke dispensing, and to encourage optimisation of prescription duration. DH had originally set 24th March as the closing date for the consultation on the plans. Pharmacy minister Alistair Burt announced the extension during a meeting of the All Party Pharmacy Group on 16th March 2016. The minister said the Government saw real potential for greater use of community pharmacy and that the extension of the consultation would give more time for it to develop its proposals working with PSNC and informed by other stakeholders. PSNC is in discussions with the DH and NHS England, seeking to understand more about the plans and to ensure that community pharmacy’s role is recognised and developed. PSNC Chief Executive Sue Sharpe commented: “We are pleased that the Department of Health has agreed to our request for it to extend its consultation on the proposals for community pharmacy. The initial time given for a consultation of this scope and complexity was inadequate, and we had asked for a more realistic timescale. We will now continue our ongoing discussions with the Department of Health and NHS England, seeking to understand the rationale for the various proposals and to find ways to ensure that the services and value provided by community pharmacies are recognised and expanded in future.” Contractors and their teams can continue to contribute to the campaign for community pharmacy, for example by supporting the Downing Street petition and sharing examples of the excellent patient care they are giving. Find out more by clicking here  As you will know we have been backing the NPA pharmacy campaign to oppose the pharmacy funding cuts announced just before Christmas. Part of this campaign has been the Petition to Downing Street to urge the Prime Minister and Health Secretary to re-consider. This is a paper petition and is different to the online petition which targets the MP's in Parliament and is one of the elements that you can help with.
It is important that all pharmacies get involved to have the biggest impact and the Petition is a really easy way for you and your teams to help. Downing Street Petition 1. Download a copy of the petition by clicking HERE. 2. Print as many off as you need and ask people to support the petition by signing it. You can also download a poster to help highlight the petition by clicking HERE 3. Once each page is complete make sure you Fax it back to the NPA straight away. There are 2 numbers on the back of the petition or if they are busy you can use - 01727 795934 4. Keep the local copies in case you have a visit from a local MP Please note that pharmacies in Gateshead and South Tyneside area will be receiving shortly a starter pack delivered by a LPC committee member to help you start. You do not need to wait for this pack you can start today by downloading the petition and poster from the links above. It is really important to make our voice heard so please get behind the campaign. We understand that there has been over 100,000 signatures so far from a limited number of pharmacies and it is hoped that once every Pharmacy takes part this number could rise to well over a million. For more details of other things you can do please visit our webpage. http://www.gandstlpc.net/whattodo.html and keep an eye out for further communications as the campaign develops.  As you will know the NPA has been leading on a pharmacy campaign to oppose the pharmacy funding cuts announced just before Christmas. Gateshead and South Tyneside LPC have been backing the campaign and in order to support contractors and really help the campaign gather momentum the LPC have produced a starter pack which will be hand delivered to each pharmacy by one of our LPC committee members.
It is really important that all contractors, pharmacists and their staff get behind the campaign in order for it to have an impact. The starter pack will contain the following.
For more details of what you can do please visit our webpage. http://www.gandstlpc.net/whattodo.html On this page you will also find links to download more petitions, posters or order more MP Cards. Our resource page for find out out who your local MP is http://www.gandstlpc.net/campaignresources.html Make sure you and your colleagues are following us on twitter / Facebook or are signed up to our mailing list to ensure you receive the latest information.  Videos of the Key speakers at the North East Pharmacy Conference can now be viewed on our website. Click Here to access the conference page where you can see the following people speak about the Pharmacy Funding Proposals and the future of the profession.
If you could not attend the conference it is worth watching the videos to find out what is going on from a national level. In particular we would urge you to watch Ian Strachans video as he details the steps you can take locally to the campaign. The NPA are working closely with the PSNC and are leading campaign for pharmacy. Below are the details of this campaign including links to help. Pharmacy Campaign Steps (Clicking on each step will take you to the relevant resource)
The Pharmacy campaign against the governments funding cuts has generated some media interest with BBC breakfast running a report. You can watch the report below. We have also posted it on our Twitter and Facebook pages where you can share the news report along with the online petition.
Don't forget to get involved by visiting our "what you can" do page.
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