Pharmacies to be able to prescribe medication under plans to free up GP appointments
Patients will be able to receive prescription medicines and oral contraception without seeing a GP under new plans to ease the strain on surgeries.
It is hoped the measures – which could be rolled out across England as soon as this winter – will help to free up 15 million slots at doctors’ surgeries over the next two years.
Under the proposals, pharmacists will be able to write prescriptions for common conditions including earache, sore throat and urinary tract infections without needing the approval of a GP.
The measures – which are part of what ministers are calling an “overhaul of primary care” – are backed by £645m of spending over two years and come alongside efforts to end the 8am “rush” for appointments.
They are being announced just days after the Conservatives suffered from a punishing set of local election results on the back of high inflation, a cost of living crisis and record high levels of unhappiness with the NHS.
Ministers hope almost half a million women would no longer need to speak to a nurse or GP to get oral contraception under the new plans and that the number of people able to access blood pressure checks in pharmacies would be more than doubled to 2.5 million a year.
Which conditions will pharmacies be able to treat without a GP appointment?
Self-referrals will also be increased for services including physiotherapy, hearing tests and podiatry, bypassing the need to see a GP.
The proposals could be in place this winter pending a consultation with the industry.
The prime minister said “transforming primary care is the next part of this government’s promise to cut NHS waiting lists”.
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The government plans to train GP receptionists
“I know how frustrating it is to be stuck on hold to your GP practice when you or a family member desperately need an appointment for a common illness,” he added.
“We will end the 8am rush and expand the services offered by pharmacies, meaning patients can get their medication quickly and easily.”
NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard said the reforms would “help us to free up millions of appointments for those who need them most, as well as supporting staff so that they can do less admin and spend more time with patients”.
Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting criticised the announcement as “merely tinkering at the edges” and said it did not deliver the “fundamental reform” the NHS needs.
He pointed to figures from the Chemists’ Association which reveal that 670 pharmacies and 343 surgeries have closed since 2015.
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Mr Streeting said: “13 years of Conservative failure has seen hundreds of pharmacies close and 2,000 GPs cut.
“Now millions of patients are waiting a month to see a GP, if they can get an appointment at all. Expecting the Conservatives to fix this is like expecting an arsonist to put out the fire they started.
“Rishi Sunak is completely out of touch with the problems facing patients and the NHS. He has no plan to address the shortage of GPs, or to reverse the cut in the number of doctors trained every year.
“The Conservatives’ announcement is merely tinkering at edges, in contrast to the fundamental reform the NHS needs and Labour is offering.”
Mr Streeting said Labour would abolish the non-dom tax status and use the proceeds to train an extra 7,500 doctors and 10,000 nurses every year.
The deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, Daisy Cooper, also said the plan was “not worth the paper it was written on”, adding: “The Conservatives have broken their promise to recruit 6,000 more GPs leaving patients struggling to get the care they need when they need it.
“Accessing faster care is critical for patients but ministers just don’t seem to grasp the scale of the problem.”
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The idea of giving pharmacists the power to prescribe without GP approval is not new.
Therese Coffey, who was health secretary during the short period of Liz Truss’s premiership, floated plans to enable pharmacies to manage and supply contraception prescriptions last September.
She also pledged that patients would see a GP within two weeks of making an appointment – although she did not set a target for when that should be achieved by.
It’s like The Godfather, one reformed drug trafficker tells me.
The mythical gangster film centred on an organised crime dynasty locked in a transfer of power.
Communities in Scotland currently have a front row seat to a new war of violence, torture, and taunts as feuding drug lords and notorious families grapple for control of Glasgow and Edinburgh.
There have been more than a dozen brutal attacks over the past six weeks – ranging from fire bombings to attacks on children and gun violence.
A firebomb attack in Scotland
Victims left for dead, businesses up in flames
Gangsters have filmed themselves setting fire to buildings and homes connected to the associates and relatives of their bitter rivals.
The main aim, they boast, is to “exterminate” the opposition.
The taunting footage, accompanied by the song Keep On Running by The Spencer Davis Group, has been plastered over social media as part of a deliberate game of goading.
A 12-year-old boy and 72-year-old woman were left for dead when teenagers wearing balaclavas burst into a home in north Glasgow.
Garages and businesses have gone up in flames. Shots were fired at an Edinburgh house.
Signals are being sent of who wants control of Scotland’s dark criminal underworld.
A firebomb attack that saw a man throw an incendiary device through a building window
The fire attack set to the song Keep On Running by The Spencer Davis Group
What’s caused the gang war?
The former director of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, Graeme Pearson, explains how a “vacuum of leadership” is playing a part.
Last October, Glasgow-based cocaine kingpin Jamie Stevenson, known as The Iceman, was jailed after orchestrating a £100m cocaine shipment stashed in banana boxes from South America.
The mob leader was one of Britain’s most wanted, running his business like another on-screen criminal enterprise: The Sopranos.
The 59-year-old fugitive went on the run before eventually being hunted and apprehended by police while out jogging in the Netherlands.
Jamie Stevenson. Pic: Police Scotland
Pic: Crown Office
‘Old scores to settle’
But paranoia was running rife about how this notorious gangster could be brought down. Was there a grass? Was it one of their own?
It further fuelled divisions and forced new alliances to be forged across Scotland’s organised criminal networks.
It wasn’t until The Iceman case came to court that it was revealed an encrypted messaging platform, known as EncroChat, had been infiltrated by law enforcement.
It ultimately led to Stevenson pleading guilty.
Ex-senior drug enforcement officer Mr Pearson told Sky News: “It is a complex picture because you have got people who are in prison who still want to have influence outside and look after what was their business.
“On the outside you’ve got wannabes who are coming forward, and they think this is an opportunity for them, and you have got others have old scores to settle that they could not settle when crime bosses were around.”
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Graeme Pearson
Mr Pearson describes a toxic mix swirling to create outbursts of violence unfolding in Scotland.
He concluded: “All that mixes together – and the greed for the money that comes from drugs, and from the kudos that comes from being a ‘main man’, and you end up with competition, violence, and the kind of incidents we have seen over the past four to six weeks.”
New wave of violence ‘barbaric’
Glasgow man Mark Dempster is a former addict, dealer, and drug smuggler who is now an author and respected counsellor helping people quit drinking and drugs.
He describes the “jostle for power” as not a new concept among Glasgow’s high profile gangland families.
Mark Dempster
“There is always going to be someone new who wants to control the markets. It is like The Godfather. There is no difference between Scotland, Albania, or India,” he said.
Mr Dempster suggests a shift in tactics in Glasgow and Edinburgh in recent weeks, with 12-year-olds being viciously attacked in the middle of the night.
“It is barbaric. When young people, children, get pulled into the cross fire. It takes it to a different level.
“At least with the old mafiosa they had an unwritten rule that no children, no other family members. You would deal directly with the main people that were your opposition.”
Police Scotland is racing to get control of the situation, but declined to speak to Sky News about its ongoing operation.
It has been suggested 100 officers are working on this case, with “arrests imminent”.
But this is at the very sharp end of sophisticated criminal empires where the police are not feared, there are fierce vendettas and, clearly, power is up for grabs.
UK
Laws may need to be bolstered to crack down on exploitation of child ‘influencers’, senior MP suggests
Laws may need to be strengthened to crack down on the exploitation of child “influencers”, a senior Labour MP has warned.
Chi Onwurah, chair of the science, technology and innovation committee, said parts of the Online Safety Act – passed in October 2023 – may already be “obsolete or inadequate”.
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Experts have raised concerns that there is a lack of provision in industry laws for children who earn money through brand collaborations on social media when compared to child actors and models.
This has led to some children advertising in their underwear on social media, one expert has claimed.
Those working in more traditional entertainment fields are safeguarded by performance laws, which strictly govern the hours a minor can work, the money they earn and who they are accompanied by.
The Child Influencer Project, which has curated the world’s first industry guidelines for the group, has warned of a “large gap in UK law” which is not sufficiently filled by new online safety legislation.
Official portrait of Chi Onwurah.
Pic: UK Parlimeant
The group’s research found that child influencers could be exposed to as many as 20 different risks of harm, including to dignity, identity, family life, education, and their health and safety.
Ms Onwurah told Sky News there needs to be a “much clearer understanding of the nature of child influencers ‘work’ and the legal and regulatory framework around it”.
She said: “The safety and welfare of children are at the heart of the Online Safety Act and rightly so.
“However, as we know in a number of areas the act may already be obsolete or inadequate due to the lack of foresight and rigour of the last government.”
Victoria Collins, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for science, innovation and technology, agreed that regulations “need to keep pace with the times”, with child influencers on social media “protected in the same way” as child actors or models.
“Liberal Democrats would welcome steps to strengthen the Online Safety Act on this front,” she added.
‘Something has to be done’
MPs warned in 2022 that the government should “urgently address the gap in UK child labour and performance regulation that is leaving child influencers without protection”.
They asked for new laws on working hours and conditions, a mandate for the protection of the child’s earnings, a right to erasure and to bring child labour arrangements under the oversight of local authorities.
However, Dr Francis Rees, the principal investigator for the Child Influencer Project, told Sky News that even after the implementation of the Online Safety Act, “there’s still a lot wanting”.
“Something has to be done to make brands more aware of their own duty of care towards kids in this arena,” she said.
Dr Rees added that achieving performances from children on social media “can involve extremely coercive and disruptive practices”.
“We simply have to do more to protect these children who have very little say or understanding of what is really happening. Most are left without a voice and without a choice.”
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The researcher pointed to one particular instance, in which children were advertising an underwear brand on social media.
She said: “The kids in the company’s own marketing material or their own media campaigns are either pulling up the band of the underwear underneath their clothing, or they’re holding the underwear up while they’re fully clothed.
“But whenever you look at any of the sponsored content produced by families with children – mum, dad, and child are in their underwear.”
Dr Rees said it is “night and day” in terms of how companies are behaving when they have responsibility for the material, versus “the lack of responsibility once they hand it over to parents with kids”.
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