Clause 29 - Pilot schemes
Health and Social Care Bill
9:30 am
Mr John Denham (Minister of State, Department of Health; Southampton, Itchen, Labour)
Dispensing GPs do indeed provide a valuable service, particularly in areas where community pharmacy services are not available. Although the general preference is for the full range of pharmacy services to be available, dispensing GPs provide a service valued by patients that would not otherwise be available.
It is generally recognised that the current contractual framework for community pharmacy needs improvement. The national framework fails to provide sufficient incentive, and does not properly reward good quality and service at the expense of those who provide only the bare minimum. We want to reform that national framework. At the same time we want to provide a more flexible alternative. There are already many good examples of local projects under which pharmacists provide extra services on top of the national requirements. What is missing at the moment is a proper framework for local agreements to bring all the elements into a coherent whole, tailored to specific local needs. Local pharmaceutical services pilot schemes will provide that.
As with personal medical services, the legislative framework in the Bill is deliberately flexible and open. The emphasis is on local imagination and innovation, free from the constraints of the rigid national contractual framework.