Our days of protest action, our collective expression of frustration through our ballot, and the absolutely unprecedented profile we have won for the community pharmacy network, has helped put more money on the table for our network, focused minds, and shown that pharmacists – like GPs, hospital doctors and nurses – are a strong voice that must be heard.
The settlement for this financial year might be a way off what’s needed to recoup a decade of cuts, but the 15% increase is the largest in the NHS and the largest for many a year. That’s down to your support and steadfast campaigning. Thank you.
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Today we’ve said we’ll stand down our recommendation for NPA members to reduce their hours and halt free services.
We’ve done that to facilitate vital conversations with government about what happens next.
Read more: BREAKING: NPA U-turns on pharmacy collective action
We need a sustainable future, and that will mean reform. We want to share our ideas, share the huge dynamism of NPA members and share the vast difference that, together, we can make for the millions of people we serve.
We think that aim is best served by suspending collective action now and looking to the future.
Read more: Nick Kaye: ‘The NPA isn’t in any mood to back down’
But NPA members who need to change their hours or change their services to survive will have our support. Patients need a local pharmacy on hand, so those that need to make savings to stay afloat must do what’s necessary to keep those services going.
Never stop
We will also never stop campaigning. The toll of cuts in recent years – and the toxic inheritance picked up by Wes Streeting and his ministerial team – is thrown into sharp relief by figures out this month that show the number of bricks and mortar pharmacies in England have fallen below 10,000 for the first time in decades.
That’s an extremely difficult situation, and one which we have to hope the latest settlement will improve in the short run.
Of course, as Stephen Kinnock rightly acknowledged, the current settlement falls significantly short of the cost of NHS pharmaceutical services in England, as estimated by the independent economic analysis commissioned by NHS England itself.
Read more: All the headlines: Community pharmacy funding deal
That is a gap we need to find a way to bridge, so we’ll never shy away from speaking out.
As the representative body for the clear majority of pharmacies in each of the four nations of the UK our duty is to do nothing less.
But it’s also our duty to embrace the future. We have common cause with Ministers who want to move care into communities, who want to prioritise prevention, who want family health services and a system where you can talk face to face with a clinician near where you live.
Independent pharmacies can – and do – deliver that, with the proper support and investment. The experience of pharmacies in Scotland shows that pharmacies can be better funded and can deliver affordable healthcare that improves care for patients and works for the public purse.
Read more: ‘Anti-competitive’ contract favours bricks-and-mortars, DSPs protest
We want to have that conversation with Wes Streeting and his ministerial colleagues because we believe we share a common vision.
But, of course, we will carry on speaking up for pharmacies. And if the current settlement does not stabilise our network we’ll say so – not for ourselves, but for the millions of people we serve, and for the dedicated pharmacists and their teams who we represent.
In the meantime, we’ll do everything in our power to support our members, to help them make a sustainable living from the NHS, and to expand into new services and new ways of working to allow them and their families to thrive, while keeping to the spirit of service to which we are all dedicated.
Nick Kaye is the chair of the National Pharmacy Association