Pharmacy First consultation costs are borne by the NHS Pharmacy contract.
So practices can quite literally save the equivalent of providing GP overtime (or locum) appointments to cover the volume of appointments that are being referred.
Generally, one GP session takes care of a dozen or so appointments with research showing that a volume of patients equivalent to the capacity of one doctor session per day, could be deflected to pharmacies for an average practice .
Practices will also be aware of the cost of overtime GP sessions and so managers can easily estimate the financial benefit that could be siphoned out of NHS Pharmacy First – and this can genuinely be realised with the vigilant support of ReferralFlow.