Dear Colleague,
CPNI Board Meeting 12th Mar’20 Update for Contractors – Community Pharmacy Industrial Action & COVID-19 Pandemic UPDATES
Today’s meeting of the CPNI Board was devoted to 2 agenda items, namely the Industrial Action that was endorsed at the Contractor meeting on 24th Feb’20 and the impact of the emerging COVID-19 situation on Community Pharmacy. This email provide you with a summary update on the discussions at the Board.
- Industrial Action and discussions at Locality Meetings held this week.
Directors, having taken the feedback from the Contractor locality group meetings into account, decided that Industrial Action will be postponed for the time being due to the developing COVID-19 situation and the need to prioritise contingency planning for community pharmacy service provision.
- COVID-19
Cathy Harrison, Chief Pharmaceutical Officer, DoH(NI) attended today’s Board meeting to discuss the current and planned provisions for Community Pharmacy in relation to COVID-19 contingency measures.
In addition to previous CPNI correspondence related to COVID-19 and the letter you received yesterday from the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer, https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/publications/chief-pharmaceutical-officers-letter-pharmacists-covid-19-coronavirus-11-march-2020. there has been on-going contact with the pharmacy leads within the Department of Health (NI) and HSCB in recent weeks to ensure COVID-19 contingency arrangements are specifically prioritised for community pharmacy in Northern Ireland.
In order to support your community pharmacy teams as they deal with a developing situation, CPNI has been advised that the following aspects will be included in community pharmacy contingency planning measures being taken forward by DoH(NI) and HSCB, in conjunction with CPNI.
- Development of contingency planning arrangements in the event of community pharmacies having to temporarily close due to COVID-19;
- The possible temporary re-deployment of pharmacy staff to/from other community pharmacies or healthcare settings and the indemnity provisions therein;
- Funding arrangements that may be introduced for any pharmacies which have to close temporarily;
- Cash flow solutions should contractors have to deal with rapidly rising medicines prices;
- Possible community pharmacy support for patients who have to self-isolate due to possible infection or pre-existing conditions which put them at particular risk from infection;
- Possible legislative amendments that could further facilitate and enable service provision;
- Contingency planning around the supply chain to ensure medicine supplies to community pharmacies is maintained as best as possible;
- Financial measures to maintain on-going cash-flow for community pharmacy businesses;
- Prioritisation of specific commissioned community pharmacy services over non-essential commissioned services;
COVID-19 contingency planning will now also supersede service development work-streams that are currently undertaken by the HSCB, DoH(NI) and CPNI so that the focus is firmly on planning for the developing COVID-19 situation.
CPNI will also be liaising with a range of stakeholders including contractor representative bodies, supply chain representatives, DHSC and NHS England as well as other stakeholders across the UK as the wider UK contingency measures are developed.
This COVID-19 update provides you with a very high level summary of some the areas under active development. From this point onwards further work will now take place with DoH(NI) and HSCB to work through the detail associated with each of these elements. CPNI will of course provide you with additional updates on an on-going basis as further information and detail becomes available.
Should you require any additional or specific information in relation to COVID-19 or the Industrial Action in the interim please do not hesitate to contact CPNI offices.
Please also keep us informed of this developing situation.
Yours sincerely
SENT FOR AND BEHALF OF GERARD GREENE | Chief Executive