North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) is asking residents, partner organisations and pharmacies for their views and experiences of pharmacy services in the county.
The North Yorkshire Health and Well Being Board wants to find out if people think that existing services are in the right place; open at the right time and provide the services needed. The information gathered from the consultation exercise will be used to complete a Pharmacy Needs Assessment (PNA).
NHS England make commissioning decisions about pharmacies in North Yorkshire and the PNA is a tool to help them do this. The PNA looks at the health needs of the population of the county, the level and accessibility of pharmacy services and how these will be maintained and developed in the future. This will influence decisions on where to site pharmacies, their opening hours and what services are provided. The assessment is renewed every three years.
Public Health teams from NYCC and City of York Council are leading the consultation on behalf of their Health and Wellbeing Boards in partnership with other agencies including NHS England and Healthwatch. The development of the PNA is being carried out now through surveys, focus groups and meetings.
“We have to complete a PNA every three years,” said Dr Lincoln Sargeant, Director of Public Health for North Yorkshire. “There are 179 pharmacies in North Yorkshire and our last survey in 2015 told us that 84 out of 100 people visit a pharmacy at least once a year, and that 97 out of 100 people in North Yorkshire lived within ten minutes of a pharmacy.
“We also want to hear from people who don’t or rarely use pharmacies, as this information will also be useful in producing our PNA.”
There are four different online surveys:
- residents
- pharmacies
- partner organisations
- providers of health and social care services.
The surveys can be completed at www.nypartnerships.org.uk/pnaconsultation Further information and alternative format versions of the surveys are available by contacting pna@northyorks.gov.uk or phoning 01609 535995.
The closing date for the consultation is 28 July. The PNA will be completed by March next year. The current PNA (2015-2018) is available at www.nypartnerships.org.uk/pnaconsultation