About Us

Community Pharmacy Hertfordshire (CPH) represents and supports all pharmacy contractors in Hertfordshire by negotiating for local enhanced services such as the supply of emergency hormonal contraception, needle exchange, supervised methadone consumption, chlamydia screening and smoking cessation services. CPH also supports the implementation of the pharmacy contractual framework by liaising with contractors and the Area Team.

CPH is constituted according to the model constitution set out by the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) and operates within a corporate governance framework. Funding for CPH is derived from a levy paid by all pharmacy contractors in Hertfordshire. The CPH Constitution was revised in January 2023 and will take effect from April 2023 due to the changes in the local NHS infrastructure.

 

Strategic Plan and Priority Workstreams

In March 2021 CPH agreed a three-year strategic plan to run until March 2024 that included an overarching vision, mission and aims. The priorities for achievement would refresh every financial year during the three-year period and have been updated as outlined below.

Vision

Community pharmacies are an integrated and equal partner in the health and care landscape for the benefit of patients.

Mission

Represent and support community pharmacies to work locally as one unified and integrated part of the health and care community that supports the best possible outcomes for patients.

Aims and Core Responsibilities (for CPH Office to deliver these aims)     

To represent community pharmacy in Hertfordshire to all stakeholders.

  1. Engaging with stakeholders such as Local Representative Committees, Pharmaceutical companies, other LPCs and PSNC on a regular basis.
  2. Attending regular meetings and engage with commissioning and provider stakeholders within the local health and care environment. This includes medicines management meetings and locality meetings. The current focus is on Clinical Commissioning Groups, Public Health Hertfordshire, NHS England and NHS Improvement and the transition to the Integrated Care System.
  3. Maximising delivery and integration of community pharmacy with other providers in discussions with provider and commissioner colleagues.

To provide leadership and development of community pharmacy to meet future challenges.

  1. Delivering training/education/events that are not already provided or signposting existing events to support community pharmacy contractors and their teams to deliver on existing and new services.
  2. Identifying gaps in community pharmacy delivery and identifying support/guidance to aid delivery.
  3. Reminding community pharmacy contractors of best practice in areas identified as challenges.

To enable community pharmacies to be able to deliver existing and new commissioned/contracted services, nationally and locally, successfully.

  1. Supporting community pharmacy contractors and their teams to deliver their community pharmacy contractual framework and any local services sharing best practice and data on delivery, signposting to supportive information and feeding back on impractical aspects of contracts/services to commissioners/other providers to enact change.
  2. Responding and resolving queries and contacts from community pharmacy contractors and their teams on a daily basis.
  3. Keeping community pharmacy contractors and their teams updated and briefed on changes to their Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework through the website, regular news communications and social media.

 The above aims are supported by focusing on the following priority workstreams in 2023/24 as outlined below:

 Priority Workstreams

National CPCF Services – Making it work locally

Objective: To implement, maximise and support quality delivery of seven key services:

  1. Hypertension Case-Finding Service
  2. Community Pharmacist Consultation Service (CPCS)
  3. Discharge Medicines Service (DMS)
  4. New Medicines Service (NMS)
  5. Contraception Service
  6. Flu Vaccination Service
  7. COVID-19 Vaccination Service

Primary Care Networks (PCNs)

Objective: To support resourced community pharmacy leads within each PCN to encourage primary care providers to work more efficiently together and for the benefit of patient outcomes at a local level.

Community Pharmacy Communication and Engagement

Objective: To implement the actions from the agreed CPH communications strategy optimising pharmacy contractors to deliver a quality contractual framework including celebrating success, sharing best practice and identifying those who may be struggling.

Integrated Care Board Engagement

Objective: To embed working relationships with the new Integrated Care Systems (ICS) and Board (ICB) ensuring community pharmacy has a clinical voice particularly ensuring that the transition to local commissioning of community pharmacy services is open, transparent and equitable.

Transformation Pharmacy Representation (TAPR)

Objective: To ensure that CPH is meeting its responsibilities for addressing the Review Steering Group proposals as part of the TAPR work programme.

Community Pharmacy Locally Commissioned Services

Objective: To maximise local delivery of public health services. To develop and test new services for Patient Group Directions, independent prescribing and diabetes testing delivered through community pharmacy.