JSNA Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment (PNA)

What is a Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment (PNA)?

Every local authority, including Herefordshire Council and Worcestershire County Council, has a Health Wellbeing Board (HWB) to promote integrated working among local providers of healthcare and social care such as the NHS, public health, adult social care and children's services, including elected representatives and Local Healthwatch. The main purpose of the Herefordshire HWB and Worcestershire HWB is to plan together how best to meet the needs of their local population and tackle local inequalities in health.

Since 2013, Herefordshire HWB and Worcestershire HWB have a responsibility to assess the need for pharmaceutical services of the population within their respective areas and to publish a statement of the need. This is referred to as a Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment (PNA).

The PNA:

looks at the current provision of pharmaceutical services across Herefordshire and Worcestershire,
assesses whether service provision meets the current and future needs of the population and
identifies any potential gaps to service delivery.

The PNA is a key document which is used by:

NHS England to inform decisions about applications for new, or changes to existing pharmaceutical services, and the commissioning of NHS-funded services that can be provided by local community pharmacies
local authorities and Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG) when commissioning services to meet local health needs and priorities

Project Update

Thank you to those organisations which have expressed an interest in conducting focus groups to gather information from those population groups who either do not or cannot engage with online surveys. The application process is now closed

Thank you for your responses to the residents’ survey which is also closed.

We will collate all the views of people who responded to the residents' survey and focus groups and use them to inform the PNA document. There will also be an opportunity to comment on the draft PNA during the consultation period in the near future, so please keep an eye out for it.