Issue - meetings

To consider a report of the Director of Public Health.

Stockport Health and Wellbeing Board has a duty to prepare and publish a regular Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment (PNA). We are undertaking a full update of the Stockport PNA in 2014/15, so that we can update our understanding of the priority needs and meet our statutory duties to publish by April 2015.

The PNA requires a statutory 60 day consultation with a limited range of stakeholders who must be served with a draft PNA for comment. The consultation launched on 12th September and is running until 17th November.

Once the consultation period is over, the Board will be asked to adopt the PNA. The purpose of this report is to provide the Board with an opportunity to discuss and comment on the draft PNA document and also to examine the consultation process.

The Board is asked to:

(i)            consider and comment on the consultation process outlined in section 3;

(ii)           to consider the content of the draft Stockport PNA 2015, particularly focusing on the following questions:

·         The document sets out the draft results of the pharmaceutical needs assessment for Stockport. Does it achieve this?

·         Is the Board aware of any relevant information that has not been included which could affect the statements or conclusions in this document?

·         This document shows that pharmaceutical provision within Stockport is satisfactory with limited identified gaps. Does the Board have any comments on this overall conclusion?

·         Does the Board have any other relevant comments to add to this document?

Officer contact: Eleanor Banister, 0161 474 2447, eleanor.banister@stockport.gov.uk

The Deputy Director of Public Health submitted a report (copies of which had been circulated) providing the Board with an opportunity to comment on the draft Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment (PNA) for Stockport and to examine the consultation process, in advance of the Board formally adopting the PNA in January 2015. It was now the Board’s statutory responsibility to complete and approve PNA, which would assess whether the current provision of pharmaceutical services met the current needs of the population and identify any gaps in service delivery.

The draft PNA indicated that the current pharmacy provision met the needs of the population, but that there were gaps in the provision of enhanced services that were already being addressed. These related to smoking cessation services in Brinnington and expanding the coverage of needle exchange provision.

The following comments were made/ issues raised:

·         The Health & Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee had considered the draft PNA and discussed the complexities around pharmacy commissioning. They had raised concerns around enhanced services and Saturday opening hours. Overall the Scrutiny Committee had endorsed the draft.

·         Enhanced services were often commissioned locally on the basis of deprivation, although the monitoring of these services was undertaken by NHS England.

·         Concerns had been raised at the Scrutiny Committee in relation to the turnover of pharmacists at the larger establishments and the impact this had on the continuity of provision and quality for enhanced services.

RESOLVED – That the report be noted.