General Practice Community Pharmacist Consultation Service (GP CPCS)

Patients and the general public access community pharmacies for self-care advice and to purchase over the counter medicines.

It is sometimes difficult for patients to know when it might be more appropriate to access GP advice.

It's estimated that 6% of all GP consultations, which is 20.4 million appointments per year, could be safely transferred to a community pharmacy.

There's good evidence to suggest that the advice given by community pharmacists, as part of a consultation about symptoms of minor illnesses, will result in the same outcome as if the patient went to see their GP or attended an emergency department.

The purpose of the GP CPCS is to reduce the burden on general practices by referring patients needing advice and treatment for certain low acuity conditions from a GP practice to a community pharmacist.

Its aim is to make sure that patients have access to the same levels of care, close to home and with a self-care emphasis.

Aim of the service

The aim is for community pharmacists to work closely with the local GP teams to reduce pressure on GP appointments.

This will help to create some additional capacity for the practice to book patients into appointments that might, otherwise, have been filled that day, or in a few days’ time depending on the nature of the symptoms the patient reports.

The aim is also to identify ways that individual patients can self-manage their health more effectively with the help of community pharmacists and to recommend solutions that could encourage the use of pharmacy as a first point of contact for minor illness symptoms in the future.

The service is intended to be a high quality and effective clinical urgent care service provided by community pharmacy through a referral from a GP practice, enabling convenient and easy access to a healthcare professional for patients

What the service will provide

The agreement is for the pharmacy to provide self-care advice and support.

This will include information to all people referred to the pharmacy by the GP practice with a specified low acuity condition.

The end points of the consultation may include: 

• advice given only
• advice and the sale of an OTC medicine
• advice and referral into a local minor ailments scheme (where one exists). Dependent on local commissioning arrangements other options may be available, for example, a patient group direction
• advice and support to access an urgent appointment with their GP
• advice and signpost on to another service

How to access the service

Only patients who have been referred from their GP practice are eligible to receive advice and treatment under this service.

An electronic transfer of data to support the referral will be sent from the general practice to a local community pharmacy.

Across practices in England, there are now GP reception teams that work with care navigators to support the process of booking patients to see the most appropriate member of the multidisciplinary team.

Patients who wish to consult their GP or other health care provider for their condition are still free to do so. 

Register to provide the service - Registration is now closed

The regions who were included in the pilot of the service:

• Cheshire and Merseyside
• Cumbria and North East
• Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire
• West Yorkshire
• Lancashire and South Cumbria
• Midlands and East, South West, Greater Manchester or West Midlands (Warwickshire - North and Rural, Stafford Surrounds and North Leamington PCN's)
• Leicestershire
• South - Dorset CCG
• Devon
• Gloucestershire
• South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw
• East of England - Essex

Service level agreement and service specification