COMMUNITY pharmacies in Wales will be able to offer an extended range of services from April next year, including plans to develop ‘robot dispensers’, as part of substantial reforms agreed by the Health Minister.

The changes mean patients will have “accessible and convenient NHS services closer to home which will in turn free up GP and other NHS services for patients with more complex needs,” Health Minister Eluned Morgan said.

The new agreement will introduce a national clinical community pharmacy service enabling all pharmacies to provide treatment for common minor ailments, access to repeat medicines in an emergency, annual flu vaccinations, and some forms of emergency and regular contraception.

The agreement also includes plans to roll out a Wales-wide pharmacy prescribing service which will allow appropriately trained pharmacists to treat an extended range of conditions that currently require people to visit their GP.

Initially pharmacist prescribers will be able to prescribe medicines for acute illnesses like urinary tract and upper respiratory tract infections, and also prescribe routine contraception.

By April 2024 funding for independent prescribing services will increase from £1.2m to £20.2m per year and funding for the community pharmacy clinical services will increase from £11.4m to £20m per year.

In addition to the reforms, the Welsh Government has provided funding for pharmacies to implement innovative automated systems.

Dispensing robots and ATM style prescription systems that allow prescriptions to be collected 24 hours a day will improve convenience for people collecting prescriptions and make pharmacies more efficient, providing greater access to the clinical services available.

“The reforms to the community pharmacy contractual framework represent the most fundamental change to the way pharmacies operate since the inception of the NHS more than 70 years ago,” the Health Minister said.