Expanding Community Care - Pharmacy First

This morning the Prime Minister set out a new plan to boost and expand community healthcare.

A Conservative government will deliver 250 new or modernised GP surgeries, 2.5 million more checks and more care services in pharmacies, bringing treatment closer to home as part of our clear plan to secure a modern NHS for the future and help patients get the care they need. 

The Conservative government has been delivering a clear plan to secure the future of the NHS, including by 

• cutting waiting lists which have fallen by around 200,000 over the past six months and 
• delivering the first ever Long-Term Workforce Plan. 

But we must continue to take bold action by investing in more out-of-hospital care so that people don’t need to go to hospital in the first place.

So we are boosting out-of-hospital care by delivering ten million extra consultations through Pharmacy First by expanding which conditions pharmacists can treat, building and modernising 250 GP surgeries focused on areas of high housing growth, and opening 50 more Community Diagnostic Centres to deliver 2.5 million more scans, tests and checks. 

Our clear plan will deliver the bold action needed to deliver better care for patients in their local community, helping to set the NHS on the right path for the long term and securing a brighter future for you and your family.

We are doing this by:

• Expanding Pharmacy First to enable pharmacists to treat more common health conditions without patients needing to see a GP. 98 per cent of pharmacies have signed up to our current Pharmacy First service which will free up 10 million GP appointments a year by enabling pharmacists to treat common health conditions including earache, sore throat and insect bites. 
• We will expand Pharmacy First so pharmacists can also offer menopause support and treat chest and skin infections, helping patients access the care they need more conveniently on their local high street and reducing pressure on GPs
• Building 100 new GP surgeries and modernising 150 more, improving access to GP care. Our major investment in the primary care estate will go alongside the 50 per cent expansion in GP training places – from 4,000 a year to 6,000 a year by 2031 – which we have committed to in the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan. 
• The new GP surgeries will be focused on areas of new housing growth and supported by more contributions from housing developers through our new Infrastructure Levy.
• Building 50 new Community Diagnostic Centres, delivering 2.5 million more checks and tests a year for conditions like cancer when fully operational. 
• We have already delivered more than seven million tests, scans and checks at 160 sites through the largest cash investment in MRI and CT scanning capacity in the history of the NHS. We will open another 50 CDCs, helping to cut waiting lists and improve health outcomes for patients.
• Investing over £1 billion a year in these new services by 2029-30. This will be funded by cutting the number of managers in the NHS by 5,500 which will save £550 million, and halving spend on consultancy across government to raise £640 million.