We recently wrote, as part of Unite the Union and the wider staffside/management negotiations, in support of retaining Specialised Commissioning (Pharmacy) Services within NHS England as part of the proposed move of teams to Integrated Care Boards (ICBs).

With tremendous thanks to Heather Weaver (former Guild Council member).

To whom it may concern;

The Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists (GHP) represents thousands of pharmacists in the managed service. It is of the opinion of Guild Council that Specialised Commissioning (Pharmacy) Services remain within the NHS England regional teams and are not part of the specialised commissioning team moving to a hub hosted by one Integrated Care Board (ICB) per region. This is on the basis of the following points:

• Specialised commissioning medicines are not being delegated at this time. This is the case for, at least, throughout 2025/26.
• Assurance for delegated specialised commissioning services remains a regional responsibility. The NHS England regional teams contribute to this clinical governance.
• The region will have responsibility and accountability for the retained specialised commissioned services and hence require specialised pharmacy support.
• Medicines and services will continue to have national commissioning policies and service specifications.
• These pharmacy teams contribute to national programmes of care work, individual funding request panels, clinical quality review meetings and other aspects of both regional & national clinical governance.
• These pharmacy teams routinely NHS England review data (both finance and clinical) which would not be possible as an ICB employee. Finance colleagues can only currently see NHS England ledger or ICB ledger, not both.

GHP therefore supports the specialised commissioning pharmacy teams being out of scope for consideration of transfer to an ICB employer.

Yours sincerely,

Rob Connah (on behalf of GHP Executive Committee)

President – Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists