I’ll be the first to say I was impressed by the NPA’s campaign drive on protest action.
We all know the last few years have been extremely challenging for pharmacies - a quick look at C+D’s homepage would proclaim that to even the most clueless outsider.
But the renewed focus, the strong language and the unequivocal mandate from members on collective action gave me a new hope that a brighter future may be ahead.
Read more: Revealed: Majority disagree with NPA scrapping collective action
Today, I feel deflated.
Whatever you think about pharmacists taking collective action – and that’s a debate for another day – you have to consider the optics.
I can’t help but feel that the NPA’s U-turn on collective action - and I am unapologetic about the use of that word - has turned its strength into weakness. It will no doubt undermine the respect it had gained. But it is not the first time I have felt disappointed at the NPA’s lack of resolve…
It started well with the two days of protest action. Wearing black, dimming the lights and ringing bells are certainly on the more symbolic side, but the coordinated effort was historic nonetheless.
And then the collective action ballot was a dizzying high - I have to admit my surprise at the strength of feeling it revealed. With the benefit of hindsight, I feel the NPA’s first big mistake was not to go ahead with collective action at the end of last year when members gave it a resounding 99% mandate to do so. With numbers like this, and the Christmas holidays an ideal time to make the biggest impact, it would have shown that pharmacy means business – and that the NPA was listening to members.
Despite previously planning to act before Christmas, then-chief executive Paul Rees told C+D it would make any recommendations on collective action in January, should the government fail to make a satisfactory offer. Asked at the time if the NPA was backtracking, Rees said the delay was “not a backtrack at all, it’s giving the government the chance to digest the results”.
Read more: Kinnock: No collective action ‘a victory for community pharmacies’
January came and the NPA put out a list of “five key tests” for a funding deal, saying it “would not hesitate to recommend action if a proposed deal did not meet” them. When the tests first crossed C+D’s news desk, a new contract meeting them seemed unlikely. The NPA’s second and perhaps bigger mistake was backing itself into a corner by setting out such an unambiguous litmus test for whether collective action should go ahead, when it did not have the appetite or resolve to see it through.
What was the point if it wasn’t serious about this?
Read more: BREAKING: NPA U-turns on pharmacy collective action
Last month, at the eleventh hour, the NPA announced that it would recommend collective action from April 1.
Then the contract came and it paused the plans on March 31, saying it would consult members. And just a few weeks ago, NPA chair Nick Kaye told us in an exclusive interview that it was not “in any mood to back down or U-turn” on collective action following the contract announcement. But the NPA’s tests were not met.
So forgive me for being surprised when the NPA last week announced that it will not recommend collective action to its members after all, saying the contract represented “a clear step forward after a decade of cuts”.
It also said that “the last few months have shown that pharmacists – like GPs, hospital doctors and nurses – are a strong voice that must be heard”. Oh the irony.
Read more: Exclusive: NPA’s Nick Kaye - ‘We are suspending collective action and looking to the future’
To add insult to injury, the NPA added that it “understood individual pharmacies might still have to take steps to save costs” despite deciding not to go ahead with “co-ordinated protest action”. Feel free to stick your head above the parapet, you “will have our support”, but don’t count on strength in numbers.
What must this look like to outsiders looking in - and to those with whom the sector negotiates its funding?
Pharmacy minister Stephen Kinnock last week hailed the NPA’s decision as “a victory for community pharmacies”.
There is no planet on which standing down collective action against insufficient funding - while insufficient funding remains, as the government itself has admitted - is a victory for the sector.
It’s not even a victory for patients. While patients would undoubtedly have felt the impact of reduced hours and services, collective action itself aimed to protect patients from a much greater reduction in hours and services.
The only people for whom this is a victory, and let’s make no mistake about it, is the government and NHS England.
Costanza Potter is C+D’s deputy editor
