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BERKSHIRE LOCAL

PHARMACEUTICAL COMMITTEE

ANNUAL REPORT

APRIL 2014-MARCH 2015

Earl Howe visiting Alchem Pharmacy in Slough

CHAIRMAN: RUPI BHASIN

VICE CHAIR: MANVIR PATEL

TREASURER: RICHARD KNOTT

CHIEF OFFICER: CAROL TROWER

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CONTENTS

Page No.

CHAIRMAN’S REPORT 3

CHIEF OFFICER’S REPORT 4

PHARMACY SERVICES and PUBLIC HEALTH UPDATE 6

TREASURER’S REPORT 7

LPC MEMBERSHIP LIST AND ATTENDANCE RECORD 9

LPC MEMBERS AS OF 1ST APRIL 2015 10

NEW STRUCTURES- WHO’S WHO 11

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CHAIRMAN’S REPORT

This has been my first full year as Chairman and it has been a very busy year which resulted in the

official merger of Berkshire LPC with Oxfordshire LPC in April 2015.

To reach this point, your committee have had on-going discussions about LPC structure within the

committee and with our fellow LPC Chairs and Officers in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. We

reached an agreement with Oxfordshire LPC in September and brought the merger proposals to our

contractors in December, through an EGM in Maidenhead. Unfortunately, Buckinghamshire LPC

decided not to be a part of the new LPC but we continue to have dialogue with them.

The Annual Report contains full details of the LPC activities throughout the last 12 months but I’d

just like to pick out a few highlights. Firstly, the commissioning of a Flu Vaccination service across the

whole of Thames Valley which was achieved as a result of the excellent work in Berkshire over the

previous two years where we supported a pilot scheme. The Area Team were pleased with the

results and with the number of contractors who engaged with the service and have committed to

further commissioning in the 2015-15 season as a result.

Your LPC also worked closely with the Public Health Strategic Team in Bracknell and the local Public

health teams to support the services commissioned across the county. We continue to work on this

and to support contractors through training which has included Sexual Health training to support the

Sexual Health service.

And finally, over the twelve months our Chief Officer has worked hard to bring you educational

events designed to support your engagement in NMS and MURs. The events have been well

attended and the feedback has been excellent – and all delivered for you at no cost to the LPC

through the securing of industry sponsorship and through the HELP programme which has allowed

for funded training to be undertaken during working hours. We plan to continue with the evening

sessions for the coming year and I’d encourage you to attend the events, develop your skills and

network with fellow pharmacists.

Over the next twelve months we will continue to focus on supporting contractors to deliver services

so that we can show our commissioners the outcomes they will get from Community Pharmacy – the

only way to get new services commissioned is to be able to demonstrate that we can deliver the

services we already have. There is much work to be done on this as the level of engagement in

services such as the Sexual Health service is disappointingly low.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the committee for their valuable input and hard work

throughout the year. I would like thank the committee members who left the committee at the end

of March for their service and also to thank those who are continuing in the committee for their

continued involvement. I’d also like to thank Richard Knott, our Treasurer in December for his

support throughout the year and for his work in continuing to support the handover to Pharmacy

Thames Valley, the new LPC.

Rupi Bhasin

Chairman 3rd July 2015

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CHIEF OFFICER’S REPORT

This was the first year of a four year term of this current committee. We had several new

members and details of the committee and their attendance is available at the back of this

report. At the first meeting in April, the committee voted Rupi Bhasin as Chair, Manvir Patel

as Vice Chair and Richard Knott as Treasurer.

We met as a committee on five occasions. We were joined by many local guests during the

year including Lise Llewelyn, Director of Public Health for Berkshire, Graham Jones, LPN

Chair and Gary Warner, our PSNC representative. We were also joined by Marian Basra who

has responsibility for pharmacy contracts across Thames Valley.

During the year we had discussions on a wide range of topic including prescription direction,

Flu, LPC merger, LPC constitution and EPS. On behalf of the committee, I worked with the

Area Team, GP practices and contractors to resolve prescription direction and EPS issues.

We spent a considerable time ensuring that the merger of LPCs was handled appropriately

and that there was benefit in the move for contractors.

In March 2013 we appointed Anjala Sihota, a local pharmacist, as project manager for the

HELP project. Anjala organised training for pharmacy team members including Health

Champion training, Carer Awareness and Dementia Friends training. She also helped to

organise training for pharmacists on a variety of topics including Leadership, Consultations

Skills and Sexual Health training. Anjala’s role and the training were funded by a grant from

Health Education Thames Valley.

During the summer the LPC facilitated flu vaccination training for pharmacists across

Thames Valley and about 50 pharmacists attended the sessions. From September onwards

there was considerable activity and flu vaccinations reached almost 5000 across Thames

Valley with the highest performers being in Berkshire.

Your LPC held its AGM in early September. We responded to contractor feedback and held

the event in the evening, alongside the Flu launch event which was held at Maidenhead. We

had about 50 people present on the evening. Following positive feedback we will hold the

AGM in the evening again this year using the same format.

Committee members, Manvir Patel and Olivier Picard, represented the LPC at the PSNC LPC

Conference in Leeds and found the event useful. They reported back to the November

meeting about the information they had been given on Provider Organisations and issues

affecting pharmacy.

In November, we sent out the proposals for the merger and gained 100% support for the

proposal. We held an EGM on 4th December, as required by the constitution, but this was

not well attended with most contractors choosing to vote by post. Once the merger was

agreed there was more work to seek nominations for the new committee and an election

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was held to recruit the independent representatives. From February onwards, I was working

across both counties to prepare the ground for the launch of the new committee in April

2015.

During the year I have been working with the Oxford Academic Health Science network

(AHSN) and by the end of the financial year we were close to agreeing the launch of a

Transfer of Care scheme which will help pharmacists to identify patients who would benefit

from a post-discharge MUR.

Your Chairman and I have been working closely with the EPS team to try and resolve issues

and increase uptake and we will continue this work in 2015-16.

I was delighted to be appointed as the Chief Officer for the new, merged LPC and look

forward to continuing to work with my Berkshire Contractors in the future. The new merged

LPC now has the additional services of an Engagement Officer, Amanda Dean, who will help

me to answer your questions, develop the website and arrange training events. I’m sure you

will all join me in welcoming Amanda as a very welcome addition to the team.

Carol Trower

Chief Officer

07792209197

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PHARMACY SERVICES and PUBLIC HEALTH UPDATE

Over the last 12 months the LPC has worked closely with the Public Health and other

commissioners to ensure that there remains a variety of services available from Community

Pharmacy. This work built on the work last year which saw the transfer of existing services to

the new Public Health Contract from1st April 2014.

The services commissioned and delivered in 2014-15 were:

Sexual Health including Chlamydia screening and treatment

Supervised consumption

Needle exchange

Rota- Easter Sunday and Xmas Day only

Palliative Care Drugs

Stop Smoking- through subcontract with Solutions 4 Health

Flu Vaccination for under 65 at risk groups, carers and pregnant women (through NHS

England)

Flu Voucher scheme (west only)

Health Checks

Public Health Campaigns in 2014-15 were:

Flu

What’s in your Drink Alcohol Awareness

Diabetes Awareness

All Public Health services are recorded and invoiced using PharmOutcomes except the Stop

Smoking service which has its own claims process. Fees have remained constant over the

year and none of the services were decommissioned which is a success in the current

climate.

We have had discussions with commissioners about the other roles that community

pharmacy could fulfil but as yet no other services have been commissioned. In a very

difficult financial environment this will always be an uphill struggle but your LPC will

continue to work on your behalf to secure service funding.

We continue to support the delivery of MURs and NMS through training programmes but

Berkshire contractors are still not maximising the delivery of MURs with approximately

£500k of available funding not being claimed- this means that nearly 18000 patients across

Berkshire who could have benefited from an MUR are still not being seen. In 2015 we hope

to introduce a mentoring scheme to help those pharmacists who are still not engaged in the

service.

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TREASURER’S REPORT

(Draft unaudited accounts – will be updated once returned from auditor)

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Summary of Payments to Committee Members

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LPC MEMBERSHIP AND ATTENDANCE RECORD AT FULL COMMITTEE

MEETINGS APRIL 2014- MARCH 2015

(Maximum attendance =5)

Officers

Chairman Rupi Bhasin 5

Vice chairman Manvir Patel 3

Chief Officer Carol Trower 5

Treasurer Richard Knott 5

Members

AIMp Ketan Amin 4

CCA Kevin Barnes 5

Independent Contractor Ravinder Heer 5

Independent Contractor Sufian Jabbar 1

AIMp Heather McParland 4

Independent Contractor Kamal Mahasuria 4

CCA Sachin Patel 4

Independent Contractor Olivier Picard 4

CCA Barrie Prentice 5

CCA Craig Watt 1

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Committee Members as at 31st March 2015

Committee Member E-mail address Contact Number Position

Rupi Bhasin rupi.bhasin@boots.co.uk 07956 500807 CCA and Chair

Manvir Patel manvir@manichem.co.uk 07973 287617 AIMp and Vice Chair

Heather McParland heatheramacparland@yahoo.co.uk 07802 652773 AIMp

Barrie Prentice barrie.prentice@boots.com 07785 766051 CCA

Olivier Picard olivier.picard@newdayspharmacy.com 07725 040161 Independent

Sachin Patel sachin.patel@boots.co.uk 07967 196260 CCA

Kamal Mahasuria kamal.mahasuria@berkshirelpc.org.uk 0797 0045879 Independent

Kevin Barnes Kevin.barnes@lloydspharmacy.co.uk 07718 694193 CCA

Richard Knott Richard.knott@lloydspharmacy.co.uk 0796 143 1404 CCA and Treasurer

Craig Watt Craig.watt@uk.aswatson.com 07889 625074 CCA

Sufian Jabbar sufian.jabbar@nhs.net 01753 544288 Independent

Ravinder Heer rpsheer@hotmail.com 01753 526722 Independent

Ketan Amin kamin@pillboxchemists.co.uk 07887 771 897 AIMp

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The New NHS

NHS Pharmaceutical Services – System Map

Department of Health

Sets legal framework, secures funding

NHS Pharmaceutical Services

Product reimbursement

Services remuneration

Pharmacies

Dispense medicines & appliances & provide associated & other services

Division of roles

Department of Health

Determines NHS reimbursement price of medicines & appliances

NHS England

Commissions NHS Pharmaceutical Services – including Essential,

Advanced & Enhanced services, plus Local Pharmaceutical Services

Charged for service remuneration

Charged for product reimbursement

Clinical Commissioning Groups

Commission other services

Local Authorities

Health & Wellbeing Boards (produce pharmaceutical

needs assessments)

Commission public health services

Inform market entry & commissioning

decisions

Health & Social Care Information Centre

Collates & provides information

NHS Connecting for Health functions

NHS Business Services Authority

Calculates and makes payment to dispensers. Provides management

information

Dispensed prescriptions submitted with claims for other services

Health Education England

Local Education & Training Boards

Public Health England

Executive agency of the Department of Health

The diagram above describes the relationship between the different bodies

within the new NHS. As you will see, the costs of dispensing prescriptions are

charged back to NHS England but the drug costs are charged to the CCG.

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Public Health in Berkshire

Each Consultant in Public Health has a team of about 6 people who work within the Local

Authority (LA).

Each consultant is responsible for Public Health issues in their own LA but they also each

have county-wide remits to be the expert on specific topics. Commissioning of services will

be done in each LA and not county-wide.

Lise Llewelyn

Director of Public Health

Lesley Wyman Consultant in Public Health

West Berkshire

Asmat Nisa Consultant in Public Health

Reading

Darrell Gale Consultant in Public Health Wokingham

Lisa McNally Consultant in Public Health

Bracknell Forest

Angela Snowling Consultant in Public Health

Slough

Rutuja Kulkarni Consultant in Public Health

WAM

Strategic Public Health team

based in Bracknell Forrest

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CCGs in Berkshire

Every GP practice must belong to a CCG. The CCGs each have a board which includes lay

members and the CCGs hold meetings in public. Each CCG has its own website.

The existing CCGs work in two federations- each federation also has a governing board.

Berkshire West CCG Federation

Newbury and District CCG

11 practices

113,000 patients

Chair:Dr Abid Irfan

North and West Reading CCG

10 practices

107,000 patients

Chair: Dr Andy Ciecierski

South Reading CCG

20 practices

125,000 patients

Chair: Dr Ishak Nadeem

Wokingham CCG

14 practices

155,000 patients

Chair:Dr Johan Zylstra

Berkshire East CCG Federation

Bracknell and Ascot CCG

15 practices

135,000 patients

Chair:Dr William Tong

Slough CCG

16 practices

139,000 patients

Chair: Dr Jim O'Donnell

WAM CCG

20 practices

149,000 patients

Chair: Dr Adrian Hayter

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NHS England Structure at April 2015

Geographically, the South regional team covers an area stretching from Penzance to

Margate, serving a population of approximately 13.5 million. There are local teams and ours

is based in Jubilee House in Oxford with some team members based in Gloucester.

NHS England

NHS England North

NHS England Midlands and

East

NHS England London

NHS England South

NHS England South - South

Central

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NHS England Pharmacy Team based at Jubilee House

Sarah Ayub and Ellie Cripps have pharmacy responsibilities but works across all three teams.

Contact details:

Marian: marian.basra@nhs.net Telephone 01865 336804

Sue: sue.williams19@nhs.net Telephone: 01865 336783

Sarah sarah.ayub@nhs.net Telephone: 01865 334613

Ellie ellie.cripps@nhs.net Telephone: 01865 963831

Ginny Hope

Head of Primary Care

Marian Basra

Assistant Contracts Manager, Pharmacy

and Optometry

Sue Williams

Primary Care Commissioning

Support

Ellie Cripps

Primary Care Commissioning

Assistant

Sarah Ayub

Primary Care Commissioning

Assistant

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The Local Authority Picture

Each Local Authority in Berkshire hosts a Public Health team and has a Health and Wellbeing

Board. In each area there is also a HealthWatch organization – this is the independent

“voice of the people”. HealthWatch is the consumer champion organization that will collate

patient feedback and bring pressure on local authorities to ensure health needs are

addressed.

Each HealthWatch has their own website and most have active Twitter accounts and

monthly newsletters.

Local Authority

Health and Wellbeing

Board

HealthWatch

Public Health team