Pharmacies: Funding

Lord Mawhinney Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Greengross (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Mawhinney (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

I think the noble Lord has misunderstood what I said. Interestingly, 40% of all community pharmacies are in clusters of more than three within 10 minutes’ walk. There has been a proliferation in the numbers of community pharmacies at a time when we want a deeper integration of community pharmacy with primary care in particular.

[Lord Mawhinney]

My Lords, talking about the services which pharmacies provide, when do the Government plan seriously to regulate and inspect pharmacies with a view to making sure that their patient record-keeping and consultation facilities for patients are appropriate to the high standards of patient confidentiality which we insist on in every other aspect of the NHS?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

The noble Lord raises an important point which I regret I cannot answer. I will have to write to him on that matter. However, for community pharmacy to play the important role in primary care that we expect it to do, it will have to have access to integrated patient records. The confidentiality that surrounds those records is very important.