Recovering Access to Primary Care

Lord Boateng Excerpts

Tuesday 9th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, there is much in the Statement that is welcome, but I know from my own time, many years ago, as a very junior Minister in the Department of Health, but also more recently, as Chancellor of the University of Greenwich, with the role we play in the training of pharmacists, that small, independent community pharmacists have a real challenge in finding the space and capacity to provide advice and assistance to clients in conditions of sufficient privacy. What proposals will the Government come forward with, and with what funding, to assist the small independents—we are not talking about Boots and the big guys and gals but about the small independent pharmacists? What capital assistance is going to be provided to the small community pharmacists on our high streets who can potentially play such an important role, to enable them to structure their premises in a way that enables them to give the information that the Government are suggesting they should give in preference to GPs?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a very good point. It is really making sure that the independents can play a very important role. It is, where necessary, making sure that whole-estate planning takes that into account. A lot of the work I have been doing with Minister O’Brien—he heads the GP space while I look after the capital space—is looking at how we can create the sorts of models where you can put pharmacies alongside GP surgeries, in many cases, and make sure that that capability is there. I freely admit that capital is at a premium within the system, so we have to be creative in the ways we use it, but the noble Lord is absolutely correct that this is a key way to make sure we have a network of independent pharmacies that can really serve their local community.