Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment - consultation

Update 30 September 2022

Thank you to everyone who took the time to participate in this consultation.

The Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment can be viewed here, where you can also view feedback from the consultation. The report was discussed and approved by the Health and Wellbeing Board on the 23 September 2022.

Since 1 April 2013, every Health and Wellbeing Board in England has had a statutory responsibility to publish and keep up to date a statement of the needs of pharmaceutical services (community pharmacies, dispensing doctors, and appliance contractors) for the population in its area. This is referred to as the Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment (PNA).

Kent Health and Wellbeing Board published its first Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment in 2015 and revised it in 2018. It is now time to refresh and publish a revised version by 1 October 2022.

Background

The PNA will be used by NHS England when considering whether to approve applications for new pharmacies in the area covered by the Kent Health and Wellbeing Board. This is under The National Health Service (Pharmaceutical and Local Pharmaceutical Services) Regulations 2013.

It may also be used to inform commissioners, such as Clinical Commissioning Groups, Integrated Care Boards and the County Council’s Public Health teams, of the current provision of pharmaceutical services and where locally commissioned services could help meet local health priorities.

This draft PNA describes the needs of the Kent population, with more detailed assessments produced for each of the twelve localities of Kent. A separate PNA will be produced by the Medway Health and Wellbeing Board.

The PNA includes information on:

• Pharmacies in Kent and the essential services they provide, including dispensing, advise on health, collection of waste medicines and supporting public health campaigns as well as the advanced services such as supporting patients who have specified long-term conditions with new medicines and providing minor illness and urgent supply of medicines
• Other pharmaceutical services such as dispensing practices and appliance contractors.
• Relevant maps relating to Kent and providers of pharmaceutical services in the area.
• Services in neighbouring Health and Wellbeing areas such as Medway that may affect the need for services in Kent
• Potential gaps in provision that could be met by providing more pharmacy services, or through opening more pharmacies, and likely future needs.

The PNA will not include information on:

• Locally commissioned services provided by multiple healthcare providers including pharmacies which are not considered to be pharmaceutical services e.g., stop smoking services, sexual health services etc. However, it has been agreed that the information about these locally commissioned services will be provided alongside the PNA for completeness.
• Non-NHS services provided privately by pharmacies such as delivery and collection, travel clinics and filling multi compartment aids and sale of ‘over the counter’ medicines.