Former health secretary Jeremy Hunt said that community pharmacists showed during the Covid pandemic how without them ‘whole NHS would fall over’.
Speaking at the annual Company Chemist Association Conference (CCA) on Thursday, Hunt described how he found pharmacy to be the ‘Cinderella part of the NHS’ whilst he was head of the Department of Health and Social Care.
“It (community pharmacy) was the bit that the whole NHS would fall over if it wasn't there, but it was rarely talked about in headlines and very underappreciated,” he said.
“I think that began to change in a big way in the pandemic, because people realised that pharmacies were pretty much the only part of NHS where you could (easily) see clinicians.
“I've always felt that one of the wrong turns we've taken in NHS over recent decades is the way that we've depersonalised some relationship between clinicians and patients.”
Hunt mentioned the changes to how GPs work and that how since the year 2000, patients no longer have their own personal GP and instead see different GPs at a practice.
“You (community pharmacy) have kept that personal relationship with NHS patients and in some ways, in the pandemic, it was the only place where patients were able to get face to face contact.
“You were absolutely central to the vaccination efforts, to the distribution of tests and kept those supply chains going.”
The government announced earlier this year that community pharmacy will play a ‘vital role’ in its plan to transform the NHS as it outlined its 10 Year Plan.
The plan includes establishing new health centres as part of a Neighbourhood Health Service bringing a broader range of services under one roof. The government said that would free hospitals from "perpetual firefighting" and bring down waiting lists.
Over the next five years, community pharmacy will transition from being focused largely on dispensing medicines to becoming integral to the Neighbourhood Health Service, offering more clinical services.
As community pharmacists increasingly become able to independently prescribe, the government said it will increase their role in the management of long-term conditions, complex medication regimes, and treatment of obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
Describing the 10-Year-Plan as ‘sensible’, Hunt stressed that a lot will come down to funding.
“The key question is how we make sure it isn’t just words and keeps on board not just the pharmacy sector but all the other parts of the NHS family,” he said.
“I hope the pharmacy sector fights really hard to make sure we continue to see progress. The biggest risk with money is it gets used up on big pay awards and that’s why Wes Streeting has an unenviable position.”
