Pharmacies will need support to take burden off primary care - The Yorkshire Post says

That is why the Government’s plans to have pharmacists play more of a frontline role in prescribing medicines is to be welcomed.

Patients will be able to obtain prescription medicines and oral contraception directly from pharmacies under the blueprint to ease the pressure on GP appointments. The measures are to be backed by £645m of spending over two years. The big question is whether this will be enough.

Pharmacies are not immune to the pressures that have seen the health service in this country buckle. There are many that are already struggling to serve patients.

That is why it is vital that any measures done simply shift the strain from the door of GPs to that of pharmacists. Many pharmacists are worried that they could simply become a crutch to prop-up shortages elsewhere. Therefore pharmacists need to be equipped properly to deliver for patients. And there needs to be enough pharmacists coming through.

Professor Sir Stephen Powis, national medical director for NHS England, hopes the workforce plan for the NHS in England would be published before the parliamentary recess.

A workforce plan for the NHS is crucial to getting a grip on the wider crisis engulfing the NHS. We need more people to deal with an ageing population. Technology can only go so far in addressing the issues.