“We need primary legislation to change the sluggish pharmacy contract.” It’s the kind of statement you’d expect to originate from an exasperated local pharmaceutical committee chair, or an opposition MP with little to lose.

So to hear this sentiment expressed by a current pharmacy minister was unusual. And to hear it in response to an explanation of why the growth of a successful pharmacy-based hepatitis testing service remains stunted was downright refreshing in its honesty.

It’s not the first time Steve Brine has spoken about his desire for a change to the sector’s remuneration model. First, there was his claim to C+D last year that he wants a “funding framework that is fair, realistic and sustainable”.

And only last month, Mr Brine wrote to the all-party pharmacy group to announce the government is willing to discuss “the detail” of paying for pharmacists’ “care-orientated” role in the upcoming funding negotiations.

Revamping England’s fossilised pharmacy contract is undoubtedly a good thing, but while I welcome the minister’s warm words, I’m concerned his behaviour doesn’t always match up.

Take the government’s approach to pharmacy minor ailments schemes – a textbook example of the sector’s “care-orientated” role. In a letter to Labour MP Julie Cooper – an excerpt of which was shared with C+D this week – Mr Brine confirmed there are no plans for a national minor ailments scheme in England. It followed the minister’s dismissal last year of concerns about the rate local minor ailments schemes are being decommissioned across the country, brushing them off as a sign that “things have moved on”.

Encouraging every clinical commissioning group to fund a pharmacy minor ailments scheme in their area is not only a practical substitute for a national service, it became government policy in 2016 – a commitment NHS England was reminded of in the ‘Murray’ review of pharmacy services published later that year.

Dropping this pledge is an odd attitude for a government that is apparently keen to incentivise pharmacists to deliver care, rather than dispense medicines. If Mr Brine and his colleagues can’t see the value in paying every pharmacy to manage minor conditions that patients would otherwise take to a GP or A&E, how strong is their conviction to overhaul the sector’s funding model based on this very principle?

James Waldron is editor of C+D. Email him at [email protected] or contact him on Twitter at @CandDJamesW