Pharmacists need to invite their local MP to their pharmacy if they want the government to support the profession, all-party pharmacy group (APPG) chair Kevin Barron MP has said.

Inviting local politicians to see the work pharmacists are doing would give the profession a "louder voice in parliament" and would help push through a pharmacy agenda, the Labour MP for Rother Valley told the Sigma conference in Windsor this month (May 17).

"I get invites all the time from pharmacies. My pharmacists engage with their local MP and tell them what they are doing and what they're not doing and you should all do that," Mr Barron told delegates.

Mr Barron argued that pharmacists needed to find more voices to support changes to the law that would benefit their profession.

"My pharmacists engage with their local MP and tell them what they are doing and what they're not doing and you should all do that" Kevin Barron, APPG	More on the APPG Pharmacists spend two days a month chasing       out-of-stock drugs Government response to Francis report could aid       decriminalisation drive Ministers dodge APPG's call for decriminalisation       timeframe MORE NEWS
	APPG vice chair Oliver Colvile MP regularly visited healthy living pharmacies in his constituency of Plymouth Sutton and Devonport and this meant he was knowledgeable about how pharmacists interacted with their patient groups, Mr Barron added.

Pharmacist Rajesh Shah from Luton said he had arranged for his local MP to visit a pharmacy he worked at and had found the MP to be "very receptive" to what the pharmacy was doing.

"You should definitely invite your local MP, perhaps via the LPC. Pharmacy should be on their agenda," he told C+D.

Shadow pharmacy minister Jamie Reed MP told delegates at the Sigma conference that he was interested in shadowing a pharmacist at work to get a better understanding of the challenges the profession faced.

Mr Reed said that, as an insulin patient, his relationship with his pharmacist was "at least as good, if not better" than his relationship with his GP.