The government is willing to work with pharmacists and the NHS to promote pharmacy's professional image, but will not be "splashing out" on an expensive publicity campaign, pharmacy minister Earl Howe has told C+D in an exclusive interview.

The government could do more to respond to recent newspaper reports attacking the profession last month, Earl Howe admitted on Tuesday (July 30).

However, although there was "merit" to Labour's suggestion in its 2008 white paper on pharmacy that the profession needed a publicity campaign to highlight its services, government budgets were "infinitely tighter" now and pharmacy needed to look at other ways to promote itself, he said.

"When the coalition government came in there was a crackdown on publicity that was not considered absolutely necessary for the health and safety of the public" Earl Howe, pharmacy minister

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"When the coalition government came in there was a crackdown on publicity that was not considered absolutely necessary for the health and safety of the public," Earl Howe told C+D. He said there were more ways to "sing the praises" of pharmacy other than "splashing out" on expensive publicity campaigns and urged individual pharmacy businesses and "enthusiasts for pharmacy" to promote the sector instead.

The public were increasingly turning to pharmacy as a trusted source of health advice and promoting the profession to them was "pushing at an open door", Earl Howe added.

Last month, The Mail claimed that pharmacists were operating a "scandalously careless" system for checking whether patients should pay for their prescriptions.It came just five days after The Telegraph accused pharmacists of being involved in a "prescription pricing scandal", in which prescribed supplements are supplied at inflated costs to the NHS.

The stories prompted industry leaders to warn that pharmacy was facing a "PR dilemma" and needed to look seriously at how it is represented.

The C+D Senate on August 22 will be debating pharmacy's professional image, take our survey to put your views to the Senators and be in with a chance of winning £100 M&S vouchers.