Pharmacy in England: building on strengths - delivering the future - Department of Health Pharmacy White Paper. 3rd April 2008
	Blue Skies Thinking Innovation Challenging Perceived Wisdoms Starting with Basics The White Paper sets out a vision for building on the strengths of pharmacy, using that capacity and capability to deliver further improvements in pharmaceutical services over the coming years as part of an overall strategy to ensure safe, effective, fairer and more personalised patient care. NHS Pharmacy Services has been set up to help deliver aspects of this vision. Community Pharmacy in the UK through the National Health Service has always been delivered by contracts with independent companies and individuals, this has led to a slightly piecemeal service, but also to great innovation and value for the NHS, services that might suffer, or slip through the net between the patchwork of providers offers potential issues for the NHS. NHS Pharmacy Services, allied to two NHS Contractors seeks to minimise these problems in an innovative and commercial way. Initially we want to look at the needs of the public, and any short comings in general service provision, from this analysis to determine if commercially viable services may best be provided. We are launching a range of new services specifically for NHS patients. The first service launched was Hard To Find Medicines launched in February 2009.
Finding the specific medicine requested by a prescriber can become quite a challenge, especially in some very specialised areas, or where patients have specific issues or problems.Bespoke or off license medicines, imported medicines, unusual formulations for example a suspension where the product is normally only available as a tablet. Hard To Find Medicines can be contacted via www.hardtofindmedicines.co.uk or by phone 0800 567 0102