Annual Report 2016-17

Contact us at: Website: www.psnc.org.uk/sunderlandlpc/ Email: secretary@sunderlandlpc.net Twitter: @sunderlandlpc / @MarkSundLPC Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/SunderlandLPC/?locale2=en_GB

Delivering local pharmacy solutions in Sunderland

2

SUNDERLAND

LOCAL PHARMACEUTICAL COMMITTEE

Annual Report 2016-17

CONTENTS Page Chair’s report 3 Chief Officer’s report 4 Treasurer’s report 5 Overview of the Year 7

- Strengthening working relationships

- Service Delivery and Development

- Communication, engagement and support

- The LPC membership

LPC members and officials 2016-17 11

3

CHAIR’S REPORT

Umesh Patel MBE DL HonDSC As we are all too aware, 2016/17 has been an often difficult and challenging year for community pharmacies in Sunderland. This was prompted by the letter published by The Department of Health (DH) and NHS England on 17th December 2015, Community pharmacy in 2016 and beyond. The letter stated that funding for community pharmacy services would be cut and also set out a number of other wide-ranging policy ideas. In response to the letter, during 2016/17, the LPC and contractors showed commitment, determination and passion when raising the profile of community pharmacy in Sunderland and highlighting the excellent work that community pharmacies do for the people of the area. Personally, I played a role locally and nationally in the ‘Support Your Pharmacy’ campaign and it is important that we continue to build on the support we received from people within Sunderland and within our communities. Thank you to all of our community pharmacies and staff for your magnificent support of the campaign during 2016/17. Unfortunately, despite the great efforts that we all made locally, and the best efforts of the PSNC, to find a way forward to save money and to optimise the role of community pharmacies, the Department of Health imposed funding cuts. By the end of 2016/17 PSNC had embarked on the Judicial Review. Please be assured that the LPC will continue to fight for, and promote the benefit of, the community pharmacy service across Sunderland and we, as an LPC, are committed to continually supporting our contractors during this difficult period. I would stress, however, that it is more important than ever that individual contractors and their staff do everything possible to promote community pharmacy services in Sunderland. The LPC and PSNC will continue to promote the profession but there is no substitute for providing tangible evidence to patients and to the NHS locally of the excellence of our services. I attended the PSNC’s conference for LPC Chairs and Chief Officers in 2016/17 and during the year I have worked closely with key decision-makers within the PSNC. I feel that my ability to feedback information to colleagues at Sunderland ensures that Sunderland LPC is kept fully informed of national developments and how these may impact at a local level. This also feeds into our local response to these developments. Even though the threat of a funding imposition and our campaign to promote community pharmacy has been an important feature of our work during 2016/17, myself and the LPC were still able to continue other work streams and to work on behalf of our contractors. This annual report provides an overview of much of this work, which provide a foundation for our work in 2017/18. Finally, I would like to thank our contractors for the excellent services they provide to the people of Sunderland. These are difficult times for everyone in the NHS. Workloads are increasing steadily, funding is constrained, and patients rightly expect the highest standards of care. These pressures will continue. I know from my meetings in the city and around the region that community pharmacy’s contribution to the NHS and the wider public health is recognised and greatly appreciated. As an LPC we continue to work hard to both represent you as contractors and try to improve the services we offer. I look forward to continue to work on your behalf over the coming year.

4

CHIEF OFFICER’S REPORT

Mark Stephenson I took up my post as Chief Officer for Sunderland LPC in September 2016. My previous ten year’s working experience has been within health and social care. However, community pharmacy was a new field for me. However, the LPC Chair and the committee, contractors and regional LPC colleagues have all been very supportive in helping me to gain a better understanding of community pharmacy. I was previously aware of the great role played by community pharmacy within the health system and am more convinced than ever that there is still great untapped potential for community pharmacy. The focus of my role is to provide ongoing support to contractors, to develop opportunities and partnerships for community pharmacy in Sunderland and ensure that there is a consistent profile of community pharmacy with key stakeholders,

I am in regular contact with contractors and the LPC have hosted a number of events and training to support contractors. We are also continually monitoring other opportunities that will further add value to the role of community pharmacy locally. During the forthcoming year, the LPC will continue to strengthen our existing key relationships, whilst also broadening our networks and building partnerships and relationships with other key providers within health and social care. The committee met six times in 2016-17. Attendance records of members are shown in the table.

LPC MEMBER Number of meetings attended/Maximum possible attendances 2016/17

Karen Ayton 6/6

Kathryn Brown 4/6

Gillian Cucchi 6/6

Andrea Dickinson 5/6

Tim Dobbin 6/6

Cliff Gaines 5/6

Nigel Herdman 5/6

Mukarrom Hussain 4/6

Sailesh Patel 3/6

Umesh Patel 6/6

Raminder Sihota 3/6

Barrie Tudberry 5/6

At the Annual General Meeting in November 2016 the committee unanimously re-elected officers as follows: Chair: Umesh Patel Vice-chair: Gillian Cucchi Treasurer: Tim Dobbin

5

TREASURER’S REPORT

Tim Dobbin It has been another difficult year for contractors, the NHS cuts meant that fees paid to contractors fell by 8% during the year and a small fall in drug cost which may have been due to increased pressure on Category M prices. The PSNC decided to take the Department of Health to task over this drastic cut in fees, and the way they were implemented, by taking legal action which the PSNC had asked the contractors and LPCs to support by funding this action. Whilst the legal action did not succeed it has shown that the PSNC is prepared to be more robust in their dealing with the Department. The other significant event of last year was the decision of the LPC to engage a Chief Officer instead of a Secretary. Mark has been engaged as a consultant basis and whilst he had no specific Pharmacy knowledge when his services were engaged this has not hindered his ability to connect with other stakeholders in promoting Pharmacy. Whilst both of these has impacted on the LPC’s finances they should have a positive effect on contractors with the PSNC showing itself to be willing to fight more aggressively for contractors’ rights nationally and for Mark to negotiate locally. It has been a difficult year for contractors, and I do not see it getting much better in the short term, but I do believe that the NHS is beginning to see that we can offer a lot more than the dispensing of prescriptions.

6

SUNDERLAND LOCAL PHARMACEUTICAL COMMITTEE INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT

YEAR ENDED 31ST MARCH 2017

2016

£ £ £ £ INCOME

PPA Levies 87,787.82 89,325.33 Pharm Outcome Licences - 87,787.82 5,910.00 95,235.33

----------- -------- EXPENDITURE

Advertising/Social Media Account Maintenance 3,050.00 3,063.00 Attendance Allowance 3,232.00 2,500.00 Compliance Costs 1,025.80 35.00 Consultancy 27,202.50 6,196.52 Hospitality 3,860.57 1,278.15 Independent Examiner’s Fee 624.00 624.00 Licences 5,583.04 5,923.27 Locum Cover 19,428.95 10,902.13 Meetings - 4,358.18 PSNC General Levy 47,635.00 12,872.00 Secretary Salary and Expenses 1,451.06 6,265.00 Travel 1,005.27 (114,393.19) 799.78 (54,817.03)

----------- ----------- Opening Bank Balance 97,272.15 56,853.85

------------- ------------- Closing Bank Balance 70,666.78 97,272.15

------------- ------------- REPRESENTED BY

Barclays 70,666.78 97,272.15

7

OVERVIEW OF THE YEAR

Strengthening working relationships An important part of the work of the LPC is to ensure that the voice of community pharmacy is heard at many levels and with many of our commissioners, potential commissioners and stakeholders: LPCs across the region We continue to work closely with other LPCs in the region, through the regional LPC meeting, and have strengthened our networks and working relationships with friends and colleagues from other LPCs across the region. We regularly attend the Regional LPC meeting. Not only is this important in terms of developing a sense of a unified LPC ‘voice’ in the region, it has also provided opportunities to community pharmacies in Sunderland and benefits to our patients. For example, we worked with the Local Professional Network (LPN) and with our colleagues regionally to implement PERMSS. Local Representative Committee (LRC) Gillian and Mark represent Sunderland LPC at the Local Representative Committee (LRC). The LRC brings together LPCs and also representatives of the local medical, dental and optical committees in the area to discuss common concerns. The chairs of clinical commissioning groups are invited to the meetings and there is therefore an opportunity for primary care professions to jointly raise issues of common interest. Medicines Optimisation and Guidelines Group (MOGG During the year, members of the committee met regularly with officers from Sunderland CCG including members of the Medicines Optimisation team. The LPC has been consistently represented by Kathryn and Mark at the local Medicines Optimisation and Guidelines Group (MOGG). The LPC now posts any information that we receive from this meeting onto a new Clinical Update Section on our website, to ensure that this information is timely and of value to contractors. Public Health (Sunderland City Council and Sunderland CCG As an LPC, we continued to work with Sunderland City Council on public health issues. Mark and Mukarrom (who is the Sunderland LPC Public Health lead) have been very active when working with Public Health commissioners. More generally, the LPC has strengthened our working relationship with the CCG and with colleagues from Public Health and we have had regular contact with both organisations during 2016/17. Live Life Well During the latter part of 2016 and early 2017, the LPC started discussions with a local service provider, Live Life Well and Sunderland City Council (Public Health), to explore the potential of developing a partnership arrangement on the development and roll out of Healthy Living Pharmacy in Sunderland. PSNC Mark Burdon, our regional PSNC member, puts huge effort into supporting all the LPCs in the region and we are grateful for his constant support for Sunderland LPC. NHS England Area Team A representative from the LPC regularly attends the Local Liaison Group (LLG) which is hosted by the NHS Area Team and brings together representatives from all LPCs in the region. During the forthcoming year, the LPC will seek to strengthen our existing key relationships, but also to broaden our networks and to build partnerships and relationships with other key providers within health and social care.

8

Service Delivery and Development Community pharmacies in Sunderland continued to innovate and deliver services that added value to health services in the area. The work of community pharmacy continued to alleviate pressure from other key services in Sunderland, whilst also broadening patient choice: Flu Vaccination Service The flu vaccination service was highly successful in Sunderland in 2016/17 and community pharmacy built on the success of previous years. More people have chosen to have their flu vaccination at community pharmacies, thus helping to alleviate pressure at GP practices whilst also increasing awareness of the potential role that community pharmacies can play, in the mind of the public. PERMSS Another success during 2016/17 has been the pharmacy emergency repeat medicines supply service (PERMSS), commissioned by NHS England as part of their plans to strengthen NHS resilience to winter pressures and avoid unnecessary demands on GPs and hospital A&E services. PERMSS was set up quickly in the run up to Christmas 2016 and operated until early 2017. The service was provided by the vast majority of community pharmacies in Sunderland. Community pharmacies were agile and nimble when implementing the service (at very short notice) and ensured that all was in place to provide a vital service to patients during the Christmas and New Year period. Summary Care Records As 2016/17 started the committee discussed Summary Care Records (SCR) and there were concerns regarding its implementation and the bureaucracy - ‘red tape’ - involved. However, as anticipated, the response from community pharmacies in Sunderland was outstanding and the vast majority of community pharmacies in Sunderland signed up to the scheme and are now SCR live and using SCR on a daily basis to support their work with patients. Transfer of Care During 2016/17 the Transfer of Care service was introduced for patients leaving the Sunderland Royal Hospital to ensure patients received appropriate support from their community pharmacy soon after leaving hospital. Throughout the year the LPC supported the roll out of the project. Referral volumes were initially excellent, but slowed down as the year came to an end. The LPC will continue to work with colleagues from Sunderland Royal Hospital to ensure that the service is promoted and utilised. This work was supported by Ann Gunning (on behalf of the LPC) during the implementation period and the committee is grateful for her hard work in this area. EPS As a commitment towards tackling issues linked to EPS, the LPC convened an EPS Working Group to get to the root of some of these issues and to bring together various parties to address and offer solutions to these problems. This group is coordinated and led by Kathryn Brown from the LPC and is being supported by Nigel, Barrie and Mark from the LPC. Other members of the EPS Working Group include Pharmicus, NHS Digital and the CCG.

9

Communication, engagement and support Throughout 2016/17 a key part of the work of the LPC has been the way that we have communicated, engaged and supported contractors: Social Media and Online Presence A key part of our communication strategy continues to be our online presence and our social media activities. Our website and Twitter feed have both played an important role when supporting contractors about the funding imposition and relaying regular information in relation to Quality Payments. During the year we also extended our social media presence through developing a Sunderland LPC Facebook page. The committee is grateful for the work of Kathryn Featherstone who has continued to maintain our website throughout the year. This is a vital service to our contractors. Committee member, Andrea Dickinson, looks after our Facebook page, which is becoming increasingly popular. Sunderland LPC Events During the latter part of 2016/17 Sunderland LPC hosted two events to help inform and support contractors: Sue Sharpe Lecture Umesh, our Chair, was able to arrange for Sue Sharpe (CEO of PSNC), to deliver a lecture at the University of Sunderland to update contractors, from across the region, on the funding imposition and the future of community pharmacy. The event was a great success with over 150 community pharmacy staff from across the region in attendance. We hosted the event in partnership with the University of Sunderland and there was no cost to the LPC. NPA Quality Payments Event In March 2017, the LPC hosted an NPA Quality Payments event for contractors in Sunderland. The event was attended by over 30 staff from community pharmacies in Sunderland and was regarded as a huge success. Quality Payments Support At the end of 2016/17 the LPC focused an element of our work on supporting community pharmacies to maximise their Quality Payments. To this end, we increased our contractor engagement to ensure that all contractors were aware of the advice from PSNC and other key sources. We created a Quality Payment template and convened events and training sessions. Ongoing email and PharmOutcomes contact As an LPC, we have increased our engagement with contractors via PharmOutcomes and email to ensure that contractors remain up to date on key issues and developments within community pharmacy. All of these emails are replicated via the website and via Twitter and Facebook. LPC Meetings We are also keen to remain an open and transparent organisation and are keen to stress that if any contractors would like to attend our regular LPC meetings, please get in touch. A warm welcome from the Chair and the committee awaits you. Please contact Mark Stephenson if you would like to attend an LPC meeting. Sunderland CCG Engagement Events There were a number of Sunderland CCG engagement events aimed at community pharmacies throughout the year. Sunderland LPC attended these events and used them as an opportunity to engage with our contractors.

10

The LPC membership Our friend and colleague, Jim Smith, resigned as Secretary during 2016/17/17. Jim provided great service to the LPC and the committee are extremely grateful for his support over the years. In 2016/17 we recruited Mark Stephenson as Chief Officer and the committee looks forward to working with Mark. We welcomed two new committee members onto the LPC in 2016/17. Andrea Dickinson (CCA) and Barrie Tudberry (CCA). Both are regular attendees at our committee meetings and both have already undertaken additional work on behalf of the committee. For example, Andrea undertakes work related to the Sunderland LPC Facebook account and Barrie is very active on our EPS Working Group. As this report outlines, we have a very productive, committed and hardworking membership of the LPC who all play a very active role when supporting community pharmacies and our contractors in Sunderland. Several committee members attended the PSNC Members Day in York. This was a productive and thought provoking day that focused on governance. Following attendance at the event, a number of issues raised during the day have since been incorporated into the practice of the committee. As an LPC we are committed to continually improving our processes and the service we provide to our contractors. To this end we introduced an LPC Self Evaluation template as a standing agenda item at our regular meetings.

11

SUNDERLAND LOCAL PHARMACEUTICAL COMMITTEE Members and officers 2016-17

Umesh Patel, Chair. Leema Pharmacy, 91 Tunstall Road, SR2 7RW umeshleema@aol.com 0191 548 6364

Gillian Cucchi. Vice Chair. Red House pharmacy, 127 Renfrew Road, SR5 5PS. Gillian.cucchi@gmail.com 0191 549 6433

Tim Dobbin. Treasurer. Herrington Medical Centre Pharmacy, DH4 4LE Tdobbin11@aol.com 0191 584 3460

12

Karen Ayton, Boots UK Ltd Karen.ayton@boots.com 0191 567 0933

Kathryn Brown, Rowlands kbrown@rowlandspharmacy.co.uk

07917 168679

Andrea Dickinson, Rowlands Pharmacy, 189 Chester Road, Sunderland, SR4 7JA 189chesterroad@rowlandspharmacy.co.uk

13

Cliff Gaines. G Whitfield Ltd, 1a Church Street, Houghton le Spring, DH4 4DN. Cap10cliff@aol.com 0191 584 2150

Nigel Herdman. G W Herdman Ltd, 29 Ryhope Street South, Ryhope, Sunderland, SR2 0RP. nigelherdman@btinternet.com 0191 521 0344

Mukarrom Hussain, Norchem Ltd Mukarrom.hussain@norchempharm.co.uk 07760 628 469

14

Sailesh Patel. Medichem Ltd, Sunderland Sai325@btinternet.com 07973924277

Raminder Sihota, Boots UK Ltd Raminder.sihota@gmail.com

Barrie Tudberry Boots UK Ltd. b.tudberry@boots.com

15

Mark Stephenson. Chief Officer. 10 The Forge, Brancepeth, County Durham DH7 8EW. secretary@sunderlandlpc.net 07828482957 Contact us at: Website: www.psnc.org.uk/sunderlandlpc/ Email: secretary@sunderlandlpc.net Twitter: @sunderlandlpc and @MarkSundLPC Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/SunderlandLPC/?locale2=en_GB