Pharmacy Needs Assessment

This Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment (PNA) is an important strategic document produced on behalf of the Tameside Health and Wellbeing Board. It reviews the current provision of pharmaceutical services across the Borough, examines we are meeting the health needs of local communities and assesses if there are any gaps in provision.

To gain an accurate picture of this, both a public consultation and stakeholder engagement were held to see what patients and residents had to say about the provision of pharmaceutical services.

Firstly the public consultation was open for 5 weeks between September and October 2017. A survey was available electronically and paper copies were made available in relevant locations. 83 completed surveys were returned and analysed.

The PNA also required the views of local health partners to comment on the contents of the needs assessment before it was finalised, and so a Stakeholder consultation was also held for 60 days between 3 November 2017 and 5 January 2018.

Among the key questions asked in the public consultation was ‘how respondents prefer to access pharmacies’ and ‘how far they expect to travel’ and ‘what other location factors are important to them’.

The results of the PNA public consultation found high levels of satisfaction with the current pharmacy services in Tameside: 



 

1. Patients believe there is good access to a range of pharmacies and the majority (90%) of respondents could access a pharmacy within one mile of their home.
2. Patients, particularly those with long-term conditions, tend to use a ‘usual’ pharmacy as this promotes continuity of care.
3. Feedback indicated that there is good location of pharmacies in relation to GP Surgeries.
4. However some responses indicated that patients are not fully aware of the services provided by local pharmacies, for example half of respondents were not aware if their pharmacy had a delivery service.
5. Most people (32%) stated that they preferred a pharmacy no more than a mile away but 27% preferring closer to home at less than a mile.

The key purpose of this consultation was to encourage constructive feedback from patients to use in the PNA document. All feedback was considered and we incorporated the views of those who responded into the PNA document, including:


 

1. The position of pharmacies should continue to be considered – it is clear that local people prefer pharmacies to be near to their home or GP surgery.
2. As with people not fully aware of the services available to them through pharmacies, a public promotion of pharmacies should be designed and rolled out.
3. Pharmacies are eager to extend their role in prevention and early intervention and are well placed to support ‘Care Closer to Home’. Given the increasing levels of people managing long term conditions, the footprint of pharmacies across within communities in Tameside plays an important role in terms of social capital and supporting the Care Together agenda and therefore needs to be explored in growth.
4. It is recommended that a pharmacy consultation group meet when relevant to discuss and report on incoming pharmacy applications to ensure responses have taken into consideration the 2018/21 PNA findings.