Pádraig Rice (Cork South-Central, Social Democrats)
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405. To ask the Minister for Health the status of each recommendation from a group (details supplied); the timeline for implementation of the remaining recommendations; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [33327/25]

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The findings and recommendations from the Expert Taskforce to Support the Expansion of the Role of Pharmacy provide an important framework to inform the reforms and developments required to deliver expanded pharmacy services. My vision for the future includes pharmacists playing a much larger role in our health service, and I’m happy to see the progress being made by my Department to facilitate this.

Following completion and publication of the Expert Taskforce Report in August 2024, the Community Pharmacy Expansion Implementation Oversight Group (IOG) was established to implement recommendations from the “Expert Taskforce to Support the Expansion of the Role of Pharmacy”, specifically in relation to the establishment of a Common Conditions Service.

The IOG is made up of stakeholders from the PSI, IPU, HPRA, and the HSE, and is chaired by the Department of Health. It also contains practicing pharmacists and a patient advocate.

The IOG meets monthly and is currently working to finalise the clinical protocols, education and training for pharmacists, a package of required regulations, and operational aspects of the service. The group will continue to work together over the next few months to put the enablers in place to facilitate community pharmacies to establish common condition services within 2025.

As the work on the Common Conditions Service advances, my officials will subsequently progress a focused examination and scoping work on the remaining recommendations of the Taskforce with a view to establishing an approach to further phases of reform and the expansion of the role of pharmacists in all settings.

Further information on the work of the group can be found at: www.gov.ie/en/department-of-health/collections/community-pharmacy-expansion-implementation-oversight-group/.