The Independent Pharmacies Association (IPA) formerly known as the Association of Independent Multiple Pharmacies is a British trade association. Its office is registered in Doncaster. The Association represents and supports pharmacies which are privately and independently owned, and it offers partnerships and honorary membership to suppliers and service providers.
Membership of the IPA is open to independent community pharmacies with one or more branches.
IPA members represent a significant number of pharmacies in England and Wales delivery valuable healthcare services to their local communities.
The association also offers honorary memberships and partnerships to organisations and companies who wish to work with the community pharmacy sector.
Dr Leyla Hannbeck is the chief executive of the IPA. She pointed out that their members had delivered 16 million vaccinations by December 2021 and are identifying unvaccinated people, but said there was too much red tape. [1]
In December 2021 the association protested that during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom many pharmacies were “inundated by patients walking in because they were instructed by some GP surgeries to do so”. [2] They complained about shortages of lateral flow tests. Hannbeck said that every five minutes, approximately, somebody goes into a pharmacy asking for a test but do not always get them as supply is "patchy". [3]
Pharmacy is the science and practice of discovering, producing, preparing, dispensing, reviewing and monitoring medications, aiming to ensure the safe, effective, and affordable use of medicines. It is a miscellaneous science as it links health sciences with pharmaceutical sciences and natural sciences. The professional practice is becoming more clinically oriented as most of the drugs are now manufactured by pharmaceutical industries. Based on the setting, pharmacy practice is either classified as community or institutional pharmacy. Providing direct patient care in the community of institutional pharmacies is considered clinical pharmacy.
CVS Pharmacy, Inc. is an American retail corporation. A subsidiary of CVS Health, it is headquartered in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. Originally named the Consumer Value Stores, it was founded in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1963.
An independent pharmacy is a retail pharmacy that is not directly affiliated with any chain of pharmacies and is not owned by a publicly traded company. Independent pharmacies are pharmacist-owned, privately held businesses in varying practice settings. They include single-store operations, pharmacist-owned multiple store locations, franchise, compounding, long-term care (LTC), specialty, and supermarket pharmacy operation. Independent pharmacy owners generally have more flexibility to build personalized customer relationships and they strive to differentiate their services from big-chain corporations.
NHS Scotland, sometimes styled NHSScotland, is the publicly–funded healthcare system in Scotland and one of the four systems that make up the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. It operates 14 territorial NHS boards across Scotland, supported by seven special non-geographic health boards, and Public Health Scotland.
The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) is the trade association for over 120 companies in the UK producing prescription medicines for humans, founded in 1891. It is the British equivalent of America's PhRMA; however, the member companies research, develop, manufacture and supply medicines prescribed for the National Health Service.
Delta Omega (ΔΩ) is the honorary society for studies in public health, founded at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
CVS Health Corporation is an American healthcare company that owns CVS Pharmacy, a retail pharmacy chain; CVS Caremark, a pharmacy benefits manager; and Aetna, a health insurance provider, among many other brands. The company is the world's second largest healthcare company, behind UnitedHealth Group. In 2023, the company was ranked 64th in the Forbes Global 2000.
Community health councils were established in 1974 to provide a voice for patients and the public in the National Health Service (NHS) in England and Wales.
Pharmacy in China involves the activities engaged in the preparation, standardization and dispensing of drugs, and its scope includes the cultivation of plants that are used as drugs, the synthesis of chemical compounds of medicinal value, and the analysis of medicinal agents. Pharmacists in China are responsible for the preparation of the dosage forms of drugs, such as tablets, capsules, and sterile solutions for injection. They compound physicians', dentists', and veterinarians' prescriptions for drugs. Pharmacological activities are also closely related to pharmacy in China.
A pharmacy is a premises which provides pharmaceutical drugs, among other products. At the pharmacy, a pharmacist oversees the fulfillment of medical prescriptions and is available to counsel patients about prescription and over-the-counter drugs or about health problems and wellness issues. A typical pharmacy would be in the commercial area of a community.
Healthcare in Wales is mainly provided by the Welsh public health service, NHS Wales. NHS Wales provides healthcare to all permanent residents that is free at the point of need and paid for from general taxation. Health is a matter that is devolved, and considerable differences are now developing between the public healthcare systems in the different countries of the United Kingdom, collectively the National Health Service (NHS). Though the public system dominates healthcare provision, private health care and a wide variety of alternative and complementary treatments are available for those willing to pay.
The Patients Association is an independent charity operating in the UK that aims to improve patients' experience of healthcare. Established in 1963, it became a registered charity in 1991. The Patients Association works with patients directly: they are its members and supporters, and also the people who benefit from the organisation's help and advice services. The Chief Executive is Rachel Power, Julie Thallon is the Acting Chair.
Raj Kumar Aggarwal is a Welsh-Indian pharmacist, public health expert, businessman and the first ever Honorary Consul for India with jurisdiction for Wales. In this role, he is responsible for helping to further links between Welsh and Indian business, educational establishments and cultural organisations, as well as looking after the needs of Indian nationals living and working in Wales. In March 2015, he was appointed president of the Consular Association of Wales.
EMIS Health, formerly known as Egton Medical Information Systems, supplies electronic patient record systems and software used in primary care, acute care and community pharmacy in the United Kingdom. The company is based in Leeds. It claims that more than half of GP practices across the UK use EMIS Health software and holds number one or two market positions in its main markets. In June 2022 the company was acquired by Bordeaux UK Holdings II Limited, an affiliate of UnitedHealth's Optum business for a 49% premium on EMIS's closing share price.
Pharmacy in the United Kingdom has been an integral part of the National Health Service since it was established in 1948. Unlike the rest of the NHS, pharmacies are largely privately provided apart from those in hospitals, and even these are now often privately run.
Push Doctor was the UK's first platform to offer video consultations with patients online and via smartphone. It is a GP provider and remote consultation enabler in the UK with a reach of 5.4 million patients. Push Doctor is a NHS-commissioned technology provider compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
In England, an integrated care system (ICS) is a statutory partnership of organisations who plan, buy, and provide health and care services in their geographical area. The organisations involved include the NHS, local authorities, voluntary and charity groups, and independent care providers. The NHS Long Term Plan of January 2019 called for the whole of England to be covered by ICSs by April 2021. On 1 July 2022, ICSs replaced clinical commissioning groups in England.
Operation Moonshot was a UK government programme to introduce same-day mass testing for COVID-19 in England as a way of enabling large gatherings of people to take place in that country while maintaining control over the virus. According to the British Medical Journal, the programme aimed to deliver 10 million tests per day by 2021.
COVID-19 rapid antigen tests or RATs, also frequently called COVID-19 lateral flow tests or LFTs, are rapid antigen tests used to detect SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19). They are quick to implement with minimal training, cost a fraction of other forms of COVID-19 testing, and give users a result within 5–30 minutes. RATs have been used in several countries as part of mass testing or population-wide screening approaches. Many RATs can be used for self-testing, in which an individual "collects their own specimen… and interpret[s] their test result themselves".
The following is a timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in England during 2022. There are significant differences in the legislation and the reporting between the countries of the UK: England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales.