EXCLUSIVE

A Labour election victory would create more opportunities to change pharmacy, the NPA’s chairman has said.

Ian Strachan said shadow health secretary Andy Burnham was “passionate” about the sector. “There is a good case for Labour moving the profession on,” Mr Strachan told C+D on Wednesday (February 18).

“I can see why you would think pharmacy would be better under Labour, [with] a new strategy in a place and a new approach,” Mr Strachan said at the Sigma conference in India.

But Mr Strachan was reluctant to show bias towards one political party, and stressed that current health secretary Jeremy Hunt had also “seen what pharmacy can do recently”.

Mr Strachan said the Conservative politician, who told C+D last year that records access could help pharmacists save 40 lives a year, was “involved and close to” pharmacy’s current role.

Mr Strachan was also keen to point out that politicians were no longer “holding the aces” for pharmacy. Although politicians saw the “differences that pharmacies could make at an NHS level”, there were still “obstacles we’ve got to overcome” by working with others in the health service, he said. “We need to work closer with the NHS and break down barriers to improve working – that is key to me,” he said.

In December, pharmacy leaders launched a pre-election "manifesto" to encourage MPs to put the sector "at the heart" of changes to the healthcare system.

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