Mary Glindon
Main Page: Mary Glindon (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend)Department Debates - View all Mary Glindon's debates with the Cabinet Office
(5 months, 3 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberAs my hon. Friend knows, I care deeply about the future of our community pharmacies. There are over 10,500 community pharmacies across the country and they are working incredibly hard to serve their patients. I am pleased that about 80% of people live within a 20-minute walk of a pharmacy. That is why we are backing them with Pharmacy First, with £645 million of extra funding, whereby people can now go to see their pharmacist, rather than their GP, to get treatments for the seven most common ailments, such as ear infections and the like. Not only will that ensure that they can get treatments closer to home, but it will help to deliver our plan to cut waiting lists and get people the care they need more quickly.
I thank the hon. Lady for raising the case. As she knows, the Department for Education has provided extensive support and funding to all those schools that have RAAC, which in the end was less than 1% of all schools that could have been affected. More generally, there is the very significant amount we are investing in school rebuilding and maintenance. I am sure the Education Secretary will have heard her concerns and will write to her in due course.