Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment Consultation

Overview

Southwark’s Health and Wellbeing Board has developed a new Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment (PNA). This document assesses the need for pharmaceutical services within the borough, and compares this to pharmaceutical and other services that are currently provided, together with when and where these services are available.

NHS England will use the PNA to consider applications to open a new pharmacy, move an existing pharmacy or to commission additional services from pharmacies. Other commissioning bodies such as Southwark Clinical Commissioning Group and Southwark Council will also use the document to decide whether to commission additional services through pharmacies.

Why your views matter

As part of developing the current PNA, we have engaged with our local residents and all pharmacy contractors in the borough to seek their views and experiences around access and provision of pharmacy services. This engagement process consisted of two surveys: one with the public and one with our local pharmacies. The feedback from both surveys is reflected in the PNA.  

Importantly, as part of developing the PNA locally, Pharmaceutical Regulations require that a formal consultation period is undertaken on the draft Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment, with the purpose of:

• Encouraging constructive feedback from a variety of stakeholders
• Ensuring a wide range of primary care health professionals provide opinions and views on what is contained within the PNA

What happens next

All feedback received by 5 February 2018 will be collated and presented to the PNA Task & Finish Group, for consideration on behalf of the Health and Wellbeing Board. A consultation section will be included within the final Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment document. This will provide an overview of the feedback received and set out how the comments have been acted upon. An updated report including the consultation process and responses will be presented to the Health and Wellbeing Board in March 2018 and published shortly afterwards.