Luciana Berger – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2015-12-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, for what reasons the New Medicine Service is not available to mental health patients.

George Freeman

The conditions/therapy areas selected for the New Medicine Service (NMS) are those where community pharmacies are best able to demonstrate the value of the service and could provide the greatest benefit to patients. The conditions/therapy areas are currently asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, type 2 diabetes, antiplatelet/anticoagulant therapy and hypertension.

As the commissioners of National Health Service pharmaceutical services it is for NHS England to consider, in light of the best available evidence, whether to negotiate changes to the NMS including whether the NMS should be offered to mental health patients.