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Independent pharmacist Baba Akomolafe, who runs Christchurch Pharmacy in Essex, has criticised the Government for excluding Pharmacy First from the NHS app and revealed he has secured funding to create a Community Pharmacy National Booking Service so pharmacies are not reliant on GP referrals.

Speaking at the Sigma conference on Sunday, Akomolafe said referrals to Pharmacy First had “slumped”, prompting him to approach pharmacy bodies for support to build the sector’s own referral management platform which patients can access through the NHS app. He said GPs in Braintree where his pharmacy is based are supportive of the idea.

Akomolafe also revealed he wrote to the health minister Stephen Kinnock for an explanation about pharmacy’s “digital exclusion” and was told by Kinnock that there “is no plan to provide Pharmacy First appointments via the NHS app”. Independent Community Pharmacist has asked the Department of Health and Social Care for a response.

Less than one in four pharmacies in England received the £1,000 monthly Pharmacy First payment in April this year, sparking concerns that low numbers of GP referrals are hindering the service.

“Integration includes digital inclusion. The future is digital. How can we be integrated into the future of the NHS if we are digitally excluded from the NHS app?” Akomolafe said.

“We’re going from dispensing to clinical services. Why operate the NHS app for dispensing, repeats, and exclude it from Pharmacy First? It doesn’t make sense.”

Akomolafe said Kinnock’s response demonstrated community pharmacy “was an afterthought again”.

“By April this year, GPs and the PCN decided not to work with pharmacies. Anything that’s GP referral-led, we are in trouble,” Akomolafe said.

Insisting community pharmacy needed its “own digital front door”, he said he approached Community Pharmacy England, National Pharmacy Association, Independent Pharmacies Association and “everybody, because we realise we need to have a united digital front door so that the GPs don’t make the choice.”

He said that new digital front door would be called the Community Pharmacy National Booking Service.

“If the Government won’t build it, why don’t we come together and build it?” he said, revealing he secured “some investment” to design the service.

“Instead of ‘Find a Pharmacy’ (on the NHS app) which only shows your postcode, it doesn’t tell you the pharmacies that are actually available, that booking request gets sent to the NHS schedule box for the pharmacist to RSVP.

“If it’s a ‘yes’, you confirm the appointment and the person is seen, if it’s a ‘no’, you respond by email. This is not a referral, it’s a signpost, so it’s a minor element to relocate pay.

“So, what we’ve agreed with the doctors is you will forward that pay request that was chosen by the patient back to the surgery and the surgery replies that the referral has been confirmed in your NHS email.

“And then, you now have something that you can record on PharmOutcomes, Sonar. It doesn’t replace whatever it is you’re using, we just need one door that represents us. We have an opportunity to collaborate with each other behind this idea and present it as one to the GP surgery.

“We don’t need permission from the Government, they’re not going to pay for it.”