Community Pharmacies

Julian Sturdy Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

Like many Members, I have been fortunate over the years to see the brilliant services provided by local pharmacies in my constituency, including in the communities of Haxby and Wigginton, Fulford and Poppleton, to name but a few. I have also witnessed the very important role that pharmacies play in delivering care in the community. We must ensure that they are properly incorporated into the delivery of primary care.

I have the utmost respect for the new Minister and I wish him well in his new role, but I fear that he has been given a hospital pass. Having said that, I understand why he wants to make reforms. I agree that we need to improve the service offered to patients, allocate resources more efficiently and ensure better integration with the wider NHS. I welcome the recently announced pharmacy integration fund, which aims to link pharmacies to primary care.

If we are truly seeking to integrate services better, however, and to reduce reliance on funding to pharmacies for simply existing and to promote high-quality care, we must further expand the role of pharmacies and the treatments that they can administer. That would help shrug off the lingering perception that pharmacies are simply drug dispensers. For example, could things such as the winter flu jab be overseen exclusively by pharmacies?

I also support the growing calls for a truly national minor ailments scheme that directs patients to pharmacies and away from GP practices where appropriate. I welcome the Minister’s announcement that NHS England hopes to have such a scheme in place by April 2018. I hope that it will be a transformative moment for community pharmacies and primary care more widely, and I look forward to scrutinising it.

I am also pleased that, through the introduction of a pharmacy access scheme, the Minister is seeking to address some of the concerns about rural communities losing their pharmacies. He has said that 40% of pharmacies are in clusters of three or more, and I agree that we should introduce a better funding system to disincentivise that practice.

That brings me to the one-mile rule. Although I understand completely the principle behind it, I remain concerned about whether it will truly ensure that

“a baseline level of patient access to NHS community pharmacy services is protected.”

In the short time that I have left, I will cite an example in my constituency. Fulford pharmacy, which is a small, independent business and is not part of a large chain, sits only 80 metres away from the one-mile rule and is, therefore, ineligible for the pharmacy access scheme. It is not in one of the 20% most deprived areas, either. As a result, I fear that the 3,000 residents of Fulford could lose access to that fantastic service, given that the next nearest pharmacy is some distance away in Fishergate. May I encourage the Minister to consider introducing flexibility or a case-by-case assessment to ensure that pharmacies that serve specific communities do not fall by the wayside?

I will reinforce that point in the last few seconds that I have left. I am told that two branches of Boots pharmacy in terminals 3 and 5 of Heathrow airport will receive pharmacy access scheme payments, as they are more than a mile apart, despite clearly not serving any specific community.