Community Pharmacies
Debate between George Howarth and Stephen Pound(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
As ever, it is a pleasure to serve beneath your firm but benevolent eye, Mr Streeter. I congratulate the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) on bringing this important, relevant and timely matter before us. It is similar to an Adjournment debate I secured in the previous Parliament, to which the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) responded, and to a question I put to the Minister the week before last on this very subject. In both cases, the response I received was one of warm words but few concrete proposals and little reassurance for the community pharmacies.
Like everyone else in this Chamber, I happen to believe that the Minister is a good and decent man, but I fear I can see the handcuffs of the Treasury holding him tight. I feel that he is beneath the terrifying thrall of the Treasury. The proposals are nothing to do with improving patient service. They are nothing other than a pathetic attempt to balance the books on the backs of one of the most productive, hard-working, positive and excellent groups of people in our society: the modern community pharmacist. Every day, they perform a miracle on the high street. They have changed from the old-fashioned world of the dispensing retail chemist to the modern world of preventive medicine. In fact, in many ways pharmacies are multi-speciality community providers. It will not have escaped your notice, Mr Streeter, that we have here Members representing the highlands and islands, the Isles of Scilly, the Isle of Wight, Southend-on-Sea, and Members from Armagh to Ealing. This issue is one that the whole nation is concerned about.
Mr George Howarth
I am sure it was an oversight by my hon. Friend that he did not include Knowsley in that long list. I hope that the high street pharmacies are not depending on miracles. I rather hope that they are dependent on science.