Back in the New Labour years, Downing Street used to have a running joke that – according to the media – it was their biggest week to-date. Since, the last one of course.

I know that feeling – being a Minister at the Department of Health is like facing daily political machine gun fire – where every week (whatever the grid said) was ‘health week’.

This week, back to school for so many of course, is shaping up to have quite the health focus.

As trailed for a while now, and seemingly confirmed by the Prime Minister’s NHS focused media round on Sunday, Thursday will see the quick-fire piece of work known as the ‘Darzi Report’ published.

‘Darzi’ is Professor Lord Ara Darzi, former Labour Minister and Peer who was asked by Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, to carry out an independent investigation of the NHS with a particular focus on assessing patient access to healthcare, its’ quality and overall NHS performance. It will be interesting to see how he’s managed that in NINE weeks!

Read more: UPDATED: August Pharmacy First consultation threshold dropped to 15

Alongside that, Tony Blair’s former health special advisor Matthew Taylor (who now leads NHS ConFed) has published new analysis showing how the current plan to deliver an extra 40,000 NHS appointments and operations each week will not be enough on its own to achieve the 18-week waiting time target by the end of this parliament.

And third, the ever impressive Julian Hartley, at NHS Providers which represents hospital leaders, this weekend put out research which says 44% of them believe they do not have enough money to run their current services. Some are reducing staff and are “even having to consider scaling back services” they say.

Inevitably, by some incredible coincidence, parts of Darzi have leaked out in recent weeks.

I understand the stuff about banning smoking in pub gardens came from that stable as did a well-placed piece in Sunday’s Observer newspaper where Lord Darzi claimed the Lansley reforms of the coalition government left the UK open to terrible Covid outcomes.

Read more: ‘Deep distress’: Almost two-thirds of pharmacies losing money warns CPE

While all this has been going on, the Summer has seen article after article asking whether Labour’s “stunning landslide election victory” will bring even better times for community pharmacy.

Perhaps this week will answer that question in terms. Certainly the mood music continues from Starmer to Streeting and new pharmacy minister Stephen Kinnock.

We’ve gone from Wes saying in Opposition pharmacy is “crucial to building the healthier Britain we want to see” and promises in the manifesto to establish a Community Pharmacist Prescribing Service (building on Pharmacy First) and support those very small businesses with a raft of measures, including replacing the business rates system and cutting energy bills.

Now, to put it bluntly and this is true in a number of areas of policy, it’s time to move past the language of opposition and the tightly worded lines in a manifesto to find the meat in the sandwich.

On his media appearances this weekend, Wes Streeting committed to what he called three ‘strategic shifts’ for the NHS which I think are eminently sensible. It would be hard to disagree with any of them.

Read more: Pharmacy First money 'not yours' pharmacy told

They include moving care from ‘hospital to community’, to shift the NHS from ‘analogue to digital’ and from ‘treatment to prevention.’

That final point is the best of all by the way; as someone likes to say on his fortnightly podcast – prevention is the new cure!

But again, detail please, so are there any straws in the wind?

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) confirmed last month the sensible appointment of Paul Corrigan, a Blair-era adviser who will work directly with Wes Streeting on the expected output of all these words and early analysis – a new post-Covid 10-year plan to reform the NHS.

In July, before his appointment, Mr Corrigan said that primary care should be given funding to keep people out of hospital in a new financial system that creates ‘savings’ for acute trusts.

He said ‘integration’ of different parts of the NHS is failing because the current financial structure ‘fragments’ the system and argued for ‘innovation’ in how finance streams are set up between GPs, hospitals, and other parts of the system. Pharmacy as the ‘other’? We shall see.

Read more: How pharmacy reacted to the 2008 Darzi review

As reported by C+D, Community Pharmacy England has suggested in its submission to Lord Darzi that a raft of new pharmacy services - including a “menopause advice” and weight management service – be part of the new decade long plan and that has to be right.

But as CPE would be the first to say I am sure, if the Government doesn’t stand behind community pharmacy with more than words (my select committee suggested the return of some form of establishment payment) and closures continue at current pace, the outlet for those services will continue to fade away.

I don’t expect Darzi – when it is published this week – to provide anything like the detail many in this sector want to hear (that is for the 10-year plan) but if the Secretary of State wants to meet at least two-thirds of his aforementioned ‘strategic shifts’, I can think of no better place to start than community pharmacy.

Not for the first time, I agree with Paul Rees of the National Pharmacy Association, when he says the decisions Wes Streeting and his team take in the months ahead could make or break the community pharmacy network in this country.