Community Pharmacy Devon Weekly Dose 💊

Thursday 1st January 2026

Welcome to your weekly injection of local and national pharmacy news. As always, if you have any feedback or comments, please contact us by email at admin@cpdevon.org.uk.

A New Year Introduction!

Happy new year from all of us at community pharmacy Devon. To start the new year off we thought we would introduce who we are and what we do.

Community Pharmacy Devon is the local voice for all community pharmacies in Devon. We represent over 200 pharmacies including single handed independent pharmacies, smaller chains and those owned by bigger companies.

We consult and work with NHE England & Improvement, NHS Devon and ICB, local authorities and other stakeholders on all matters relating to the NHS and public health work undertaken by community pharmacies in Devon. We are also responsible for advancing the enhanced role of community pharmacy to ensure it is integrated within local systems to benefit the population of Devon.

Community Pharmacy Devon works hard to support our community pharmacy network to deliver high quality pharmaceutical services; as well as representing and promoting community pharmacy to our key stakeholders.

We have a secretariat team made up of Sue Taylor, Chief Officer, who, in her spare time, can be found adding to her collection of medals awarded for her participation in various running events. Leah Wolf, Service Development manager, who likes tearing up the countryside on the back of her motorbike for fun. David Bearman, Director of strategy, often to be found walking his trusty Labrador along the beach. Kathryn Jones, Business support, who is indispensable to her local sailing club and organises most of their events, and Sascha Snowman, Business support, who, when not ferrying kids to various sporting events, can be found paddleboarding.

The representative committee for all community pharmacy contractors in the County of Devon is made up of:

Chair - Rachel Fergie, IPA member

Vice Chair - Matt Robinson, CCA member

Treasurer - Ron Kirk, NPA member

Lisa Jago - CCA Rep: Boots

Andrew Jones - CCA Rep: Well

Jackie Lewis - Independent Contractor

Ronak Maroo - IPA Rep: Clarepharm

Ciaran McCaul - CCA Rep: Boots

Sian Retallick - Independent Contractor and Community Pharmacy England South West Regional Representative. If you need anything raising by the committee, these are your representative contacts.

‼️Another reminder! Mental Health NMS Update Event: 27th January 2026‼️

Providing the New Medicines Service and want a clinical update (and fantastic CPD) for the new, expanded ‘depression’ arm of the service? Then look no further than our Mental Health NMS Update event in Exeter on 27th January 2026.

We will host an evening event covering contractual service updates, a whistle-stop mental health update (tailored to community pharmacy teams from a local secondary care mental health expert) and case discussion of real-world scenarios that could happen in your pharmacy. As always there will be hot food and all members of the pharmacy team are welcome to attend.

Book a place here.

Community Pharmacy Devon Professionals' Page

You said you wanted to have a resource to support your professional development and support the changes that are approaching the profession....

So we listened! We have created a professionals' resource page that is yours to use and add to. You can find this here.

If you have any ideas for links or information that you feel that would support your fellow professionals, please share with us and we can add it to the page.

Improving Parkinson's Care

The Foundation Programme has been developed for health and care professionals as part of their Excellence Network's commitment to improving Parkinson's care across the UK.

The programme consists of 8 courses, designed to introduce different aspects of the condition and its management. This suite of 8 free, online courses will develop your knowledge, understanding, and confidence to improve services and support for people living with Parkinson’s. Completing all 8 will give a broad overview of Parkinson's, giving you the skills to reflect on, adapt and enhance your practice to better support those living with the condition.

Learn more here

Opportunity - Participate in Remunerated Digitally Enhanced Asthma Review Pilot

Smart Respiratory are looking for community pharmacies to participate in ‘Digitally Enhanced Asthma Reviews’ for patients on MART, Preventer or Reliever MDI inhalers. There is potential to link to the existing NMS Asthma structure, whereby Smart Respiratory remunerates the pharmacy for their time and provide free devices to the patient.

Pilot opportunity is available to support patients using a smart device to support asthma patients Further details are available here.

To take part, complete the online form here.