Issue - meetings

The Board was advised that there was a statutory responsibility to publish and keep up to date a Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment (PNA). Oldham’s current PNA was due to be reviewed during 2020/21 and the renewed PNA was to be published in April 2021.

The Board was informed that the Department for Health and Social Care determined that the publication of PNAs be suspended for one year, until April 2022, in order to reduce unnecessary extra pressure on local authorities and Local Pharmaceutical Committees (LPCs) during the response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The deadline for publishing the PNA was then pushed back further to October 2022 with guidance on the production of the PNA being produced within the upcoming months.

The Board was also required to publish a supplementary statement which outlined updated information that superseded the original information in the PNA 2018-21 and the statements issued on 17 December 2018 and June 2020. The Board was advised that the statement would be ready in the next month and would be published as soon as it was completed. There were no significant changes to pharmacy opening times and no issues were expected to arise from the publication.

RESOLVED that:

1.    the suspension of the requirement to publish the renewed Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment (PNA) until October 2022 as determined by the Department of Health and Social Care as a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic be noted.

2.    the publication of a new supplementary statement which reflects local changes in pharmaceutical provision since the previous supplementary statements be agreed.