Community Pharmacies

Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) for securing this important debate. He gave a detailed opening speech, so I will aim not to repeat the points that he has made.

I thank all pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and assistants for their hard work and dedication, and for their contribution to delivering first-class patient care in the community. As right hon. and hon. Members have said, community pharmacists are not just an integral part of our healthcare system; they are at the heart of our communities. After all, 1.6 million people visit around 11,400 pharmacies in England every day.

I would like to take the time to make two brief points on the future of community pharmacists. Before being elected as the Member of Parliament for Coventry North West, I worked in the NHS as a full-time cancer pharmacist, and I still regularly volunteer locally at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire as a pharmacist in cancer care. In my role, I have seen and experienced at first hand the vital role that pharmacists play in their communities.

Community pharmacists can dispense medication, deliver vaccinations, write prescriptions and consult on medication, to name just a few responsibilities. Above all, they are dependable and dedicated individuals who are excellent at providing medical knowledge and support for the communities that they work in. It is therefore deeply frustrating to hear about the steady erosion in the availability of community pharmacies.

Data from the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee, which will be providing constituency-based information at a drop-in event in Parliament on Tuesday 5 July, paints a very grim picture. Since 2016, 639 pharmacies have closed across England, and nine of them were lost in my city of Coventry. All the while, communities have needed quick medical support more than ever. We have heard in today’s Opposition day debate, and time and again from our constituents, about the crippling difficulties facing GP services.

The Government claim that they are doing all they can about the rising crisis in accessing GP appointments. However, that cannot be the case, as they have been ignoring the roles that community pharmacists can play in combatting this escalating crisis. Those were evident throughout the covid-19 pandemic, when pharmacists played a substantial role in the vaccine roll-out and in providing advice and support to patients during the three lockdowns. The pharmacy sector boasts a highly trained and clinically skilled workforce, who, according to the PSNC, could free up up to 40 million GP appointments each year. The Government need to make full use of that potential. Ministers should take another look at the role that pharmacists can play in supporting our GP services, rather than simply allowing pharmacies across the country to close for good. Smarter thinking here has the potential to make a massive difference; it could help to reduce waiting times, clear backlogs in the NHS and improve the availability of GPs. It would certainly make a big difference in my constituency of Coventry North West.

My second point, which has been raised briefly, is that we must put in place stronger protections for pharmacists in the workplace. Community pharmacists have reported that they do not feel safe in their workplace because of increasing levels of violence and abuse. A survey conducted by the Pharmacists’ Defence Association demonstrated the scale of the problem, with only two in 10 pharmacists reporting that they feel safe all the time at work. A follow-up survey in April showed that 44% of responding pharmacists have experienced physical or violent abuse in the past month, and that 85% have experienced verbal or racial abuse in the past month. That is disgraceful. Nobody should face that level of abuse in their place of work. Pharmacists and pharmacy teams need to feel safe. The Government must do all they can to ensure that adequate risk assessments and preventative safety measures are put in place, as well as taking a zero-tolerance approach when incidents occur.

I hope that the Minister takes into consideration the points I have raised today. The maintenance of community pharmacies and the wellbeing of pharmacists and their staff must be top priorities for this Government. Pharmacists play a crucial role in keeping their communities healthy, and the Government must do everything they can to ensure that they are protected and supported. I therefore hope that the Minister will look at how to better utilise community pharmacists to address the wider problems facing the NHS, and take immediate steps to protect pharmacists who are facing unacceptable abuse in the workplace.