Commentary on Sections Part 7.Pharmaceutical Services
217.This Part introduces changes to the way in which Local Health Boards (“LHBs”) determine applications to provide NHS pharmaceutical services. The principal changes require LHBs to prepare and publish a pharmaceutical needs assessment for their area, and to determine applications for entry onto the pharmaceutical list (or applications to amend entries on the pharmaceutical list) by reference to whether or not the application meets a need for a service or services identified in the assessment. Each LHB maintains a pharmaceutical list which includes details of the persons whose applications to provide NHS pharmaceutical services have been approved and the location from which they provide those services.
218.This new “control of entry test” replaces the test in section 83 of the National Health Service (Wales) Act 2006 (‘the 2006 Act’), which requires LHBs to determine whether it is “necessary or expedient” to grant the application in question. Further changes authorise LHBs to remove a person from its pharmaceutical list for very serious or persistent breaches of terms and conditions of service.