Community Pharmacies
Debate between Victoria Borwick and David Mowat(8 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
David Mowat
These are private businesses, each with a different business model and a different amount of income from the NHS, from other retail activities and from services. Each is financed in a different way. Indeed, 30% of them are owned by two public companies, and 70% of them are multiples.
Victoria Borwick (Kensington) (Con)
Can reassurance be given that local pharmacies are the frontline of primary care? Will the Minister extend the work and responsibility of those local pharmacies, particularly in deprived areas, and reassure us that that is the focus of this debate?
David Mowat
I spoke to 500 pharmacists this morning and gave them that precise reassurance. The changes that we are making to transform the sector into a service-based, not dispensing-based, economy will do just that. That is where pharmacies need to go and it is where they want to go. Frankly, it has taken too long.