This document discusses ways that community and hospital pharmacies can work together to implement recommendations from the NHS Five Year Forward View and Lord Carter Report to improve efficiency and save up to £5 billion. Specifically, it outlines how infrastructure functions like supply chain management, education, and advisory services could be delivered by community pharmacies. Potential areas of collaboration include having community pharmacies take over hospital outpatient dispensing, provide homecare services, dispense discharge medications, and help manage stock. Challenges and future developments are also discussed.

1. Member of Walgreens Boots Alliance
Pharmacy working together to
put Lord Carter’s
recommendations into practice
Jackie Buxton Salma Iqbal
Senior Manager External Partnerships Senior Manager External Partnerships
NHS Midlands & East NHS North

2. NHS Five Year Forward View…
….concluded that to sustain a
comprehensive, high-quality NHS,
action is needed on three fronts:
1. Demand
2. Efficiency
3. Funding
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3. Lord Carter Report…
…..summarised that
‘up to £2bn savings could be
delivered by improving workflow and
containing workforce costs and a
further £3bn from improved hospital
pharmacy, medicines optimisation,
estates and procurement
management.’
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4. How can we achieve this?
• Time spent by Hospital Pharmacists prioritising Clinical
Services instead of ‘Infrastructure’
• The primary functions of the Hospital Pharmacy team
are to work closely with Patients, Doctors and Nursing
teams
• To benefit patient care and improve operational
productivity and performance there are many areas
within infrastructure which can be delivered by
Community and Hospital Pharmacy working together
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5. What does ‘Infrastructure’ include?
• Supply chain
• Education and Training
• Advisory services
• Research and Development
• Services to External Organisations
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6. Working together;
Community and Hospital Teams
• Improvements in supply chain management
• Trusts that have not outsourced their outpatient
dispensing services should consider a review as part of
their HPTP plans
• Community Pharmacy supporting with discharge
medication dispensing
• Potential opportunities for large scale centralised
dispensing of medicines for outpatients and patients at
discharge
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7. Working together;
Community and Hospital Teams
1. Outpatient Dispensing Services
2. Homecare
3. Discharge Medication Dispensing
4. Stock
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8. 1. Outpatient Dispensing Services
• Many Acute Trusts have outsourced outpatient
dispensing to third party providers
• The first of these was in 2007
• Work in partnership with Community Pharmacies to
support patient choice
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9. 2. Homecare
• Disruption in homecare market in 2013/14
• Opportunity to dispense items through the
outpatient dispensary and offer patients delivery or
collection choices
• Quality and safety ensured via KPI monitoring, Trust
and patient feedback
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10. 3. Discharge Medication Dispensing
• Working together to support patients leaving
hospital earlier
• Dosage packs
• Community pharmacy supported by NHS clinical
pharmacy services to improve efficiency and
enhance patient experience
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11. 4. Stock
• Reduce stockholding for Trust
• Stock teams work together to resolve out of stock
lines
• More potential
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12. Challenges
• Stock supply – June paper ‘Outsourcing outpatient
pharmacy services’
• Relationship with the CMU
• Capability and clinical knowledge
• Separate legal entity – returns of unused medication
• Wholesale Dealer Authorisation
• IT systems
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13. Potential Future Developments
• Large scale centralised dispensing of medicines
• More work on discharge from community pharmacy
– follow with Discharge Medication Review
• Further homecare
• Multi-provider approach to patient care
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14. Any Questions?
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