The UK has a rich history of medicines reclassification – what does this mean for the patients you serve?

Ahead of the Pharmacy Show on 13-14 October, we caught up with Michelle Riddalls – Chief Executive of PAGB, the consumer healthcare association. We asked her about what medicine reclassification means for community pharmacy, and also what she’s looking forward to at the Pharmacy Show this year. 

PAGB collaborates with a range of key players on medicine reclassification – can you briefly summarise what this means for community pharmacy professionals and the populations they serve? 

For over 40 years, the UK has led the way in reclassification – the process of changing the legal status of a medicine - delivering huge benefits for individuals, the NHS and the economy.  

By making a medicine available over-the-counter (OTC), individuals seeking to self-care gain rapid and convenient access to medicines, empowering them with greater autonomy and choice in their healthcare, and providing faster relief from ailments. This is where community pharmacies can play a key role. As highly qualified healthcare professionals, pharmacists offer expert advice, and their accessibility makes them an invaluable resource. Increased availability of OTC medicines not only reduces GP visits and A&E attendances but also prevents conditions from worsening. 

Pharmacies play a huge role in making medicines an accessible resource for people with health conditions. With longer opening hours than GP surgeries, patients can receive advice and treatment from a pharmacist, often much quicker than they will be seen by a GP and over 99% of those living in areas of the highest deprivation are within a 20-minute walk of a community pharmacy1. Pharmacists' expertise should be fully utilised to maximise the benefits that introducing more medicines via reclassification offers. By encouraging more individuals to seek advice and care from their community pharmacy, we can enhance patient care, increase footfall in pharmacies, and better utilise pharmacists' clinical skills to support wider NHS efforts. 

As someone who collaborates with government and policymakers on a regular basis, what insight can you offer to pharmacy professionals on influencing the new government? 

At PAGB, we have long argued in favour of measures to prioritise self-care: this includes increasing education and awareness, working to make OTC medicines more accessible, and supporting people’s confidence to practice self-care for self-treatable conditions. Working with the new government, policymakers and regulators, we need to ensure self-care is prioritised, and now is the time to capitalise on the very real opportunities in reach to realise its full potential and benefits. 

To support the new government to unlock the benefits of self-care, we’re calling on them to: embed self-care fully in primary care, empower patients to access the right care at the right place, and promote an attractive environment for continued investment in the OTC market. We’ve also asked the Government to agree a long-term funding settlement for community pharmacy that reflects pharmacy’s role in supporting NHS delivery.  

As part of this, we recently wrote to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care detailing the scale of the opportunity and highlighting the quick and cost-effective wins that prioritising self-care will deliver and how this can help reduce the burden on the NHS ahead of the winter illnesses season.  

We also work closely with pharmacy associations as part of the Self-Care Strategy Group, for which we provide the secretariat. The group has been instrumental in securing national self-care policies. In terms of influencing the new government, you can speak to your pharmacy trade association, if you are a member, to see how you can support their advocacy efforts. Working collaboratively can help us to achieve more. For local issues, you can also speak with your constituency MP – ask them to advocate on your behalf – they can write letters to ministers and ask parliamentary questions. You can also write a letter directly to the health minister Stephen Kinnock MP (pharmacy falls into his portfolio of work)! 

Can you give us a little sneak preview of the key threads of your session at the Pharmacy Show? 

I’ll be delving into the UK’s rich history of medicine reclassification, tracing the journey from over 40 years ago to its current status as Europe’s leader in this area. We’ll discuss recent collaborative efforts between the Department of Health and Social Care, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, and leading pharmacy organisations aimed at reinvigorating reclassification in the UK, thereby enhancing access to self-care for more people. With a new Labour Government in place, maintaining a focus on reclassification is crucial, and pharmacies will play a key role in ensuring the Government continues to prioritise these efforts. 

Finally, what are you most looking forward to at the Pharmacy Show this year? 

The Pharmacy Show is always a brilliant event, bringing together healthcare professionals from across the pharmacy sector to share best practice, key trends and to learn and network with each other. As well as attending some of the great sessions on this year’s programme, I’m looking forward to meeting many of the community pharmacists attending from around the UK, and discussing the opportunities and challenges that PAGB can help to prioritise across our work representing consumer healthcare. 

If you’d like to hear Michelle speak at the Pharmacy Show, she will be in the Keynote Theatre 10:15-10:45, Monday 14 October. Book your place here. 

Footnotes: 

1 https://cpe.org.uk/learn-more-about-community-pharmacy/the-value-of-pharmacy/