Matt Hancock highlighted an inherent lack of enthusiasm within NHS England’s senior management for providing more support to community pharmacists
Former health secretary Matt Hancock, who gave evidence to the Covid-19 Inquiry on Thursday (21 November), admitted that NHS England has traditionally been very restrictive toward pharmacists, attributing this to the inadequate support provided to community pharmacies during the pandemic.
Earlier this month, Nick Kaye, chair of the National Pharmacy Association (NPA), told the inquiry that community pharmacists felt “demoralised and demotivated” by how they were overlooked during the pandemic, including the delay in initial access to PPE and the COVID life assurance scheme.
Community pharmacists were unable to access FFP3 masks and the PPE portal until August 2020.
When the inquiry’s lawyer questioned Hancock about the reason for the delay, he stated, “In a world of highly constrained PPE availability, we had to be careful to ensure it got to where it was most needed, and there’s a hierarchy” suggesting that community pharmacists were considered a lower priority.
The former health secretary added that PPE was eventually made available to pharmacists because he pushed for that.
When asked about the initial exclusion of community pharmacies in the government’s emergency pandemic life assurance scheme.
Hancock said: “I’m going to give you the brutally honest answer to this, with some trepidation…the pharmacy contract is managed by NHS England. In order to maximise taxpayer value for money, NHS England is by tradition really very tight on pharmacists… there is therefore inbuilt into NHS England senior management a lack of enthusiasm for giving more to community pharmacists than they absolutely have to Read More….