Community Pharmacies
Debate between Sadik Al-Hassan and Julie Minns(1 week, 3 days ago)
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Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank the hon. Member for Tiverton and Minehead (Rachel Gilmour) for securing this important debate. I also thank the staff at community pharmacies across my constituency, particularly the staff at the Well pharmacy in Denton Holme who have given exceptional care and support to my family for many years.
Pharmacies and their staff provide a vital accessible health hub in our communities. However, this year Community Pharmacy England has reported that 55% of pharmacy staff experience abuse, often triggered by medicine shortages, prescription delays, long queues and other issues entirely outside their control. I am sure all hon. Members will agree that, whatever the prompt, abuse of that nature is completely unacceptable. I will therefore be grateful if the Minister can briefly outline what action the Government are taking to protect pharmacy workers from abuse.
Sadly, under the previous Government too many community pharmacies were lost. Between 2019 and 2024, 1,633 community pharmacies closed. In the same period, about 400 opened: just one for every four that was closed. In communities such as Carlisle, the closure of a pharmacy has a significant knock-on effect on the remaining pharmacies. Two pharmacies in the Harraby area of Carlisle have closed in recent years, placing additional pressure on the sole remaining pharmacy, on Central Avenue, and resulting in longer waits for prescription collections. It is therefore doubly frustrating that efforts to open a new pharmacy in the same community have so far come to nothing because the premises’ landlord, the Riverside housing association, has failed to respond to representations from both the prospective pharmacist and me since last October.
Ms Minns
In the meantime, ironically, the shop next door, a former pharmacy, has been refurbed and opened as yet another barber’s and mini-mart. It is simply not good enough. That is why I very much welcome this Government’s prescription for our community pharmacies: not just £3.6 billion in funding for community pharmacies, but the Government’s high street strategy, the recently announced crackdown on dodgy vape shops and mini-marts and the plans to integrate community pharmacies as key local healthcare hubs. These actions are not just vital for the health of local people; they are vital for the health of our high streets, too.