Sefton Health and Wellbeing Board are required by law to produce a Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment (PNA) every three years, and to make sure that it is available for stakeholders to comments on before it is finalised and published.

The pharmaceutical needs assessment describes pharmacy provision in Sefton together with when and where these are available.  NHS England also uses the PNA when considering applications to open a new pharmacy, move an existing pharmacy or commission additional services from a pharmacy.

The key outcomes for this consultation are:

• To encourage constructive feedback from a variety of stakeholders and professional bodies between 20th November 2017 and 18th January 2018.
• To ensure that residents and professionals provide opinions and views of what is contained within the PNA.

Matt Ashton, Director of Public Health, explains: “All feedback will be considered and the PNA steering group will decide on behalf of the Health and Wellbeing Board (HWB) which sections of the PNA need amending.  A consultation report will be included within the final PNA document.  This will provide an overview of the feedback received and set out how comments have been acted upon.

“An updated PNA, including the consultation process and responses, will be presented to the Health and Wellbeing Board in March for final publication from April 2018. I look forward to receiving your feedback on the draft PNA.”

The draft PNA can be found by accessing this link on Sefton Council’s website.  If you require a paper version of the PNA, please contact Steve Gowland on 0151 934 3070.

To comment and feedback there is also a short response form to complete via this link.  Alternatively you can respond formally in writing to Steve Gowland, Public Health Team, Merton House, Stanley Road, Bootle, L20 3UU, using this form.