COMMUNITY PHARMACY SCOTLAND CORNER
CPS STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT FOR THE COMMUNITY PHARMACY NETWORK
Development of a new CPS strategy is well underway and was presented to the CPS Board and Council in May.
There are 1,244 community pharmacies throughout Scotland, forming a united network that offers unmatched accessibility to trained healthcare professionals for citizens – over a third of sites even have prescribing capability at the time of writing and we are on a trajectory to achieve full coverage by the early 2030s.
This same network also provides our Government and NHS the potential to reach almost every person in Scotland with vital messaging and interventions. Crucially, there are more pharmacies per capita in areas of high deprivation than there are in affluent neighbourhoods – the perfect opportunity to tackle health inequalities head-on by making the most of established trust and relationships built up over years and through generations.
CPS’ main function has always been to work with the Scottish Government on behalf of our members to secure a sustainable future where their expert skillset and strong community presence are put to best use for the benefit of patients and the NHS. We firmly believe that, with appropriate investment, there is a bright future ahead for both our network of pharmacies and the NHS in Scotland.
With this in mind, our aim is to prevent, detect and treat illness close to home – delivering healthier communities across Scotland.
Developing a clear strategy that is aligned with the NHS’ aims of doing more preventative work and identifying ill health as early as possible helps to raise our profile with political parties of ahead of the Scottish Parliament elections in May 2026.
The strategy will be key to our policy and public affairs activity in Scotland both in the run up to the election, and beyond.
Adam Osprey, Head of Policy in CPS said: "We have been working closely with members on our 5-year Vision and Strategy to make sure it is ready for the next Scottish Parliamentary elections. We believe that community pharmacies have so much more to offer the
PVG REQUIREMENT UPDATE
From 1 April 2025, it will become a legal requirement for individuals - including pharmacy technicians, to be members of the protecting vulnerable groups (PVG) scheme before undertaking any regulated roles involving children, protected adults or both.
The PVG Scheme was established under the Protecting Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Act 2007 in response to the Bichard Inquiry. It is designed to prevent unsuitable individuals from gaining access to vulnerable groups by enabling organisations to check whether someone is listed on any barred lists. Once a person is registered, the employing organisation is recorded as an
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‘interested party’ on their Disclosure Scotland file, and is notified if the individual’s status changes.
To date, pharmacists have been required to hold PVG Scheme membership due to their responsibilities in regulated work. Community Pharmacy Scotland (CPS) has been working closely with Disclosure Scotland and the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) to clarify how upcoming legislative changes affect Pharmacy Technicians.
CPS can now confirm that Pharmacy Technicians will fall under the updated definition of ‘regulated roles’ and, as such, must be members of the PVG Scheme from 1 April 2025. This clarification follows direct engagement between CPS, Disclosure
Scotland, and the GPhC. Contractors will be responsible for ensuring that any pharmacy technician undertaking a regulated role is a member of the PVG Scheme prior to starting that work.
Under the Disclosure (Scotland) Act 2020, the term ‘regulated work’ will be replaced by ‘regulated role’. While the scope of existing responsibilities will be preserved, this change will also bring additional roles, such as that of pharmacy technicians into scope. PVG Scheme membership will continue to be mandatory for anyone engaged in regulated roles with children or protected adults.
people of Scotland, and this work will clearly set out how we intend to prevent, detect and treat ill health going forward.
Our strategy will inform how and where we focus for our policy and influencing activities, with early engagement already underway. Our main aim is to kick-start a conversation about how the expertise and accessibility of pharmacy teams can be best put to use - and what is required to make sure that any development is sustainable."
We are looking forward to providing our members and their teams with more detail on the strategy in the coming months and to begin engagement with all stakeholders when we launch the work over summer 2025.
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