The NHS in England is to allocate £112m of additional funding to generate an additional 1,500 Pharmacist jobs in GP practices by 2020, according to a recent announcement made by the Government.

The announcement forms part of theGovernment’s plan to invest a further £2.4bn a year in GP services for 2020 (see our recent blog - http://bit.ly/1NmSb3z).

The plan comes 5-months after the Government announced planned cuts to the pharmacy contract of £170m, which potentially could lead to the closure of up to 3,000 pharmacies up and down the Country.

The ‘General Practice Forward View’, published on April 21^st 2016, stated that the success of general practices in the future would rely on the expansion of the wider non-medical workforce, including pharmacists, nurses and practice managers, to a minimum of 5,000 extra staff by 2020.

The NHS England wants to expand pharmacists working in GP surgeries to “enable every practice to access a clinical pharmacist across a minimum population on average of 30,000 – leading to an extra 1,500 pharmacists in general practice”.

The plan also states that the NHS England will open up the clinical pharmacist training programme to practices that have directly funded a clinical pharmacist

Ian Strachan, the chair of the National Pharmacy Association (NPA), stated: “Sustained investment in local pharmacies would be a far bigger stride towards opening up access and creating a world class health service.”

He added: “The community pharmacy network has to remain the core of pharmaceutical care in the community. There is already a highly qualified workforce in local pharmacies right across the country and a well-established infrastructure for delivering care in those settings. Community pharmacies are a ready-made solution on the health service front line, close to where people live, work and shop.”

Watch this space for future developments.