The changing nature of community pharmacy has been the subject of much debate over recent years. With the demise of the high street and rise in ‘out of town’ retail parks, the demand for supermarkets with onsite chemists (many of which are open 24hrs) has taken its toll on independent pharmacies.

More recently, the community pharmacy landscape has received another blow in the form of financial cuts. Towards the end of 2015, the government announced plans to reduce funding from £2.8bn to £2.63bn from October 2016, as part of the drive to find £22bn of savings across the health service by 2020. Though details have yet to be finalised, it is estimated this will equate to a cut of about 6% for a typical community branch.

Pharmacists from across the UK have hit out over these plans, with some saying the cuts are a “disaster” for the sector, having the potential to severely damage business, particularly for  independent pharmacies, which are not as well placed to absorb costs elsewhere.

Reduction in funding, reduction in quality of service?

If, or indeed when, these cuts come into force pharmacies will be forced to adapt accordingly. As Sunil Kochhar, a pharmacy owner from Gravesend, told The Pharmaceutical Journal: “the ones that will suffer are the public and our staff, because we’ll have to make cuts in staff to compensate and then the quality of the service that we’re doing reduces.” In short, cuts to staff will mean that remaining employees have less capacity to give health advice, which may have the knock-on effect of making patients more likely to visit their local GP or A&E department. Of course, for those pharmacies which are unable to cope with the NHS cuts, closure could ensue. A report by the Daily Mail suggested up to a quarter of England’s pharmacies may have to shut in the coming years.

Safeguarding the community pharmacy with IT solutions

While government cuts are out of the hands of pharmacists, there are certain measures that can be taken to safeguard businesses and minimise the negative impacts associated with a reduction in funding. Largely, it boils down to having the tools that will enable pharmacies to drive their own financial and operational efficiencies. A good example is the use of rule-based order processing systems, something which is emerging as a viable way to streamline activities and create savings.

Software such as Positive Solution’s OrderManager essentially enables pharmacists to setup and refine stock ordering rules according to preference and requirements, giving complete control over where items are ordered from and which suppliers are used. This capability delivers several key financial and operational benefits for users. Because rule-based order processing systems will search for all alternative products / suppliers for each line on an order, the pharmacy is less likely to experience ‘out of stock’ lines, an issue which often results in costly, ‘just in case’ stockpiling. Furthermore, preferences can be set to cap the prices paid for specific items, ensuring that supplies are always purchased within budget and at the most competitive prices. For pharmacy groups, order processing systems offer the advantage of consolidating all branch needs into one single order, which means items can be bought in bulk thus enabling further savings to be made. As well as reducing man hours for staff, this also helps to ensure consistency in spending.

Using technology as a means of streamlining processes and reducing costs gives pharmacists an important weapon in their arsenal when it comes to countering both government cuts and changes in the wider market place and is crucial when it comes to ensuring the future of community pharmacy in this country.