Community Pharmacies

Kevin Barron Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

I should say that I am chair of the all-party pharmacy group. I am sure that many of my colleagues will today talk about the savings and services that community pharmacies provide to the national health service. Although that is an important point, it is also essential that we highlight the good that they provide to patients. They do so much more than just deliver prescriptions to people. Let me just highlight the scale of their operations. Some 11,800 community pharmacies dispensed more than 1 billion prescription items in 2015.

Community pharmacists are well prepared to adapt to many different problems with which they are presented. They help people to give up smoking, alter their diets, become healthier and manage their cholesterol. Effectively, they are on the frontline as far as the health of the public is concerned.

[Anna Turley]

My right hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. Pharmacies are right at the heart of their communities. As has already been mentioned today, access to those services is vital. In some areas—such as our two constituencies—bus services are being cut and people are finding it increasingly difficult to access services. It is nonsense for the Minister to say that it is a matter of seconds between pharmacies. Will my right hon. Friend comment on how important access to pharmacies is to our communities?

[Kevin Barron]

It is very important, and the mechanism that has been put in place will not solve everything. We may get Boots in Gatwick airport supporting it, but there is the potential that others may drop off the line because they are just outside the geographical area. We need to look at that.

Let me turn to population health. This cannot be done by central distribution centres or a pharmacy based miles away, as they have no link with the locality. I am pleased that the idea of major companies getting involved in prescribing has been dropped. Pharmacists know their customers well and are familiar with their medications and, consequently, the customers feel confident in asking them for their advice.

The Government’s figures show that the £170 million cut could force up to 3,000 community pharmacies—one in four across the country—to close their doors to the public, so people would have to travel a lot further to their pharmacist and not have the local connection that I mentioned previously. Community pharmacy is the gateway to health for some 1.6 million patients each day. If anything, that is something we need to get a grip on.

A core component of current pharmacy services supports the public to stay well, live healthier lives and self-care. Pharmacists play a central role in the management of long-term conditions. They carry out medicines use reviews, for example. We must remember that more than 70% of expenditure on our national health service at both primary and acute level is spent on people with long-term conditions. There could not be a better gateway for those people to get the assistance they need to manage those conditions than through local pharmacies.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is right. Community pharmacies are at the heart of the gateway. Does he agree that there is a danger that the proposed cuts might end up costing more money than they save?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Barron]

That is a danger. We do not know what is going to happen.

Community pharmacies attract patients who will not access health care anywhere else. People greatly value the fact that they do not need an appointment at a pharmacy. The long opening hours, too, are appealing. People from deprived populations who may not access conventional NHS services do access community pharmacies, which helps to improve the health of the local population and to reduce health inequalities.

I know that there is some weighting of the figures in relation to the assessment scheme. We need to see how that will work. I hope that we will take it into account that where there are higher levels of deprivation, large numbers of pharmacies might not be inconsistent with need.

I was contacted by a pharmacist in my constituency to highlight two examples from the past week that showed the vital role of a local community pharmacy. In the first example, a 34-year-old lady with epilepsy had run out of her essential medication, owing to a visit lasting longer than she had anticipated. She went along to the local walk-in centre but was denied a supply because of the lack of prescription evidence. As we all know, records are not as joined-up as they should be. The lady then visited her local pharmacy, which, thanks to local record access, was able to determine that her request was genuine and gave her a short-term supply. A lengthy and stressful visit to A&E was therefore avoided and the risk of potentially harmful seizures was averted as well.

In the second example, the pharmacist described spending 45 minutes with the parents of a one-year-old late on Wednesday evening, helping to administer soluble prednisolone for severe croup. The fact that the pharmacist was able to spend that time with the family got the job done, and again an A&E visit was avoided.

The difficulty in collecting such examples is that so many pharmacists see this simply as what they do, rather than as great examples of care for patients. They do not moan about it, worry about whether they get paid to do it or pass the buck; they just deal with the situation and improve patient care for the individual in front of them.

As well as providing extra services, community pharmacies are taking on more of the clinical roles that have traditionally been undertaken by doctors, such as the management of asthma and diabetes and blood pressure testing. That should be welcomed, as it reduces the pressure on GPs. It is usually so much easier for people to visit their local pharmacy for these services than to wait at their GP’s surgery. Because of the greater amount of time that they can spend with each patient, community pharmacists can respond to patients’ symptoms and advise on medicines that have been prescribed or are for sale in pharmacies.

The public support for local pharmacies and the services that they provide is huge. I was one of a number of Members from both sides of the House who presented a petition to No.10 a few weeks ago that now has some 2.2 million signatures. It is the biggest health petition that we have ever had here in the UK.

I shall finish with a quote from a pharmacist in Rotherham, who said, “I do what I do to make a positive difference to patients’ health and wellbeing every single day. How many things would I be able to pick up post-cuts? Probably not as many, as we will have to cut back on staff and I won’t have as much patient-facing time.” The all-party group will be looking at the proposals. I do not say that we should move away from a dispensing model, but we need reassurance that any move will not affect our community pharmacies and patients’ needs.