Mapping the ‘new’ community pharmacy commissioning landscape in England (since 2013)

This project aims to map the commissioning landscape in community pharmacy in England, since the reorganisation of the NHS from 1 April 2013. It will profile which services are being commissioned, which organisations are involved and how commissioning is occurring.

In 2005, a new contractual framework was introduced in England (CPCF), with similar developments in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. This categorised the services provided by community pharmacies into essential (including dispensing), advanced and enhanced services and enabled reimbursement of cognitive services, utilising pharmacists’ increasing levels of clinical skills, thus moving away from reimbursement based solely on medicines supply.

Since 2013, these services have been commissioned by both NHS England and Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs). However, there are also other commissioning bodies, such as Public Health England and Local Authorities (LAs), which commission other (locally commissioned) services, many of which address the public health agenda. These changes have led to a fragmentation of commissioning – between NHS England, CCGs and LAs. Furthermore, due to the NHS reorganisation (with disbandment of PCTs) and the considerable reduction in staff, much organisational knowledge and understanding with regards to the specific requirements of community pharmacy organisations and services they can provide was lost. This fragmentation has led to confusion in community pharmacy, and attempts to better integrate community pharmacy services into the patient’s primary care pathway have largely been unsuccessful.

It is therefore important to gain an understanding of which community pharmacy services are being commissioned, who by and how. It will be particularly important to understand the incentives (and disincentives) which exist with regards to the integration of community pharmacy into primary care. There is little understanding of what affects the commissioning (or indeed decommissioning of services), and to what extent – and how – local need is taken into account.

This project will be exploratory using both quantitative and qualitative methods to map and characterise the commissioning of community pharmacy services. It will involve commissioners (NHSE, PHE, CCGs, LAs), primary care providers, particularly GPs, and community pharmacies.

Training will be provided consonant with the student’s previous research training and skills. The student will be provided with a mix of generic training around research design, as well as bespoke research methods training specific to the project as it develops, including literature reviews, qualitative (interviews, focus groups, observation) and quantitative (survey) research techniques, and writing and presentational skills. In addition, all PhD students in the Faculty can take part in formal training and development provided by the Faculty and university’s Doctoral College. Networking with peers is also actively encouraged, supported through a student led PhD forum and peer mentoring programme.

Candidates are expected to hold, or about to obtain, a minimum upper-second (or equivalent) undergraduate degree in pharmacy, medicine, the social sciences or related areas. A related Masters qualification with a significant element of social research training methods and/or substantial (>2 years) research experience would be desirable.

The successful candidate will be expected to have a passion for working in research and a keen interest in workforce and organisational issues in healthcare. A good understanding of UK NHS, community pharmacy or other health disciplines is welcome but not essential.

This project may be suitable for a pharmacist or academic clinical fellow/GP interested in applying for an NIHR, ESRC or PRUK studentship.