Sigma’s overseas conference is an annual event that we all look forward to and this year’s conference in Baku, Azerbaijan lived up to all expectations.
We were thrilled to have the British Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Fergus Auld OBE, in attendance and he opened the conference for us.
Matt Turmaine, MP for our hometown of Watford was unable to attend in person but did appear ‘virtually’ and he shared a message to delegates from UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. In the letter the Prime Minister told delegates that the government was determined to capitalise on the clinical expertise of pharmacists in its drive to fix what he previously described as a “broken” NHS.
“This government is developing a 10 Year Health Plan to reform the NHS to make it fit for the future,” said Starmer. “Pharmacies play a key role in enabling the shift from hospital to community and from treatment to prevention. We are expanding their role (community pharmacists) by accelerating the rollout of independent prescribing to support this plan.”
The Pharmacy First scheme that was launched in January 2024 across England enables patients to receive treatments for seven common conditions directly from a pharmacist without a GP’s appointment or prescription.
Following on from that, Starmer also said in his letter: “The Department of Health and Social Care recently announced a package that will see record investment and reform in order to support the sector, We’ve agreed with community pharmacy England to increase the community pharmacy contractual framework to £3.073 billion. This represents the largest increase in funding of any part of the NHS – over 19 per cent across, 2024/25 and 25/26 – which recognises that community pharmacy plays a vital role in our healthcare system.”
Over the three days of our conference, key speakers shared insights and information to shed light on recent developments and give delegates a comprehensive understanding of the state of the sector. Panel discussions also allowed for interactive sessions with questions from the audience. Here are a few highlights:
Alastair Buxton, Director of NHS Services at Community Pharmacy England, stepped in for Janet Morrison, CEO, and announced the £3.073 billion government funding promise. This constitutes a 19.7% uplift from 23/24. Alastair also spoke about how the CPCF settlement announced 6 weeks ago is the first step on a journey towards longer-term stability, through which Community Pharmacy England was able to shape how the funding was allocated, introduce measures to ease the operational burden, and secure many crucial commitments from Government.
The latest sector opinion polling largely confirms the continued pressures and lack of confidence in terms of business investment – Community Pharmacy England will be making constructive use of this valuable data as it holds the Government to account on its commitments. Community Pharmacy England will also continue to show how community pharmacy can help meet current Government priorities, making the investment case for the sector in line with its wider strategy for the sector as the NHS 10-Year Plan and Spending Review are being prepared.
Olivier Picard, the new National Pharmacy Association Chair, a practising pharmacist, spoke with passion and energy about local community pharmacy and promised to bring the same to his new role at the NPA. Although he recognised the vast underfunding gap, he affirmed that pharmacy is still seen as a ‘non replaceable’ part of the community.
Hemant Patel, Clinical Lead, Health Inequalities and Population Health Management, South East London Integrated Care Service, launched his new book on anti-inflammation at the conference, offering it to delegates free on Amazon for two days.
Mark Samuels, Chief Executive at Medicines UK (formerly BGMA), urged Britain not to lose its global medicines competition, stating the importance of competing even more vigorously in the current market. He underlined that there are still shortages which have impacted pharmacy very seriously.
A regular speaker at Sigma’s events, Shilpa Shah, CEO at North East London LPC, talked about how community pharmacy can overcome some of the challenges it is facing in an ever-changing landscape. This included information for pharmacies on how to navigate the upcoming changes in the NHS and with ICB’s, how to use technology to streamline processes, and Shilpa advised pharmacies to look at the skill mix of their workforce and how pharmacies can maximise NHS and private services.
Chris Pilsbury, Senior Director, Information Offerings from IQVIA, presented key statistics and showed anecdotal evidence about how community pharmacy has been performing and which opportunities stand out. He talked about a serious decline in the number of pharmacy contractors and highlighted evidence that there is currently a lot of innovation around drugs and medications – generics, not branded or biosimilars.
Mahendra Patel adjudicated an excellent second day with the introduction of Chief Pharmaceutical Officer from all four nations, engaging with other reputable panellists to address fears and challenges faced by all of us in pharmacy.
Another workshop hosted by Trevor Gore, Maestro Consulting and Hemant Patel placed an emphasis on behavioural actions and how pharmacy needs to stand out. Hemant Patel spoke about the ‘Pain Points’ relating to over-reliance on NHS services alone. He said that pharmacy needs to wade out into the river a little deeper to discover added value services and health offerings that would bring remuneration to pharmacy.
Sigma’s Managing Director Raj Haria and Head of Customer Service, Dipesh Vaja made a passionate presentation to the conference about Sigma’s uncompromising attention to service delivery. Despite recent challenges following the implementation of a new ERP, Sigma’s customer service offering is now back on track and on an upward trend.
As if all that wasn’t enough, we also enjoyed a Bollywood evening, excursions and even some traditional Azerbaijani flame throwing!
Full coverage of the conference speaker sessions is available to view on Sigma’s YouTube channel:
