Community pharmacies across the country are delivering 38 million appointments a year in place of GPs as patients struggle to book consultations with their doctors’ surgery, new analysis has revealed. The increased workload has left staff carrying out hours of unpaid work a day, Community Pharmacy England (CPE) said. Just over 69 million walk-in health advice consultations are provided by pharmacies every year, according to the results of a recent audit by CPE.
The survey, the results of which were shared exclusively with i , pooled data from almost 4,000 community pharmacies across the country (more than a third of CPE’s membership) in June. CPE extrapolated the figures, and its analysis shows that high street chemists save the NHS at least 38 million GP appointments a year. Pharmacists carrying out consultations identify around 2.
7 million people a year needing urgent help, CPE said. “It’s a huge benefit to the NHS because a lot of the time we’re preventing these people having to go see the GP, or – if it’s more urgent – we’re escalating it into the GP or to A&E to deal with it quicker,” said Fin McCaul, managing director of Prestwich Pharmacy and CPE’s regional representative for North West England. But due to limits over the consultations for which the health service provides funding, pharmacy staff are being left to cater to millions of walk-in appointments for free every week.
“We actually save a lot more than [38 million GP appointments],” Mr .