Pharmacists are making a huge contribution to improving the health of our nation. We are the most accessible healthcare profession bar none. Our clinical skills have never been better and they have never been more needed. The recent report demonstrating the phenomenal impact pharmacists are having in care homes is just the latest evidence of the value we deliver. Yet, at the point of what should be a golden age for pharmacy, the morale of our frontline pharmacists has never been lower. The toxic mix of financially driven clinical interventions and the uncertainty over the recently announced funding cuts to community pharmacy are having a devastating effect.
The funding cuts must be opposed because they have the potential to not only set back the development of our profession but, more importantly, they have the potential to cause real harm to the most vulnerable patients in our society. If elected I will work to strengthen the broad coalition against the cuts. If the cuts are imposed on us then we cannot simply allow our profession to be destroyed by an unthinking round of cost cutting. I want our professional body to take the lead in developing new ways of working that ensure all patients have access to high quality care delivered by a pharmacist with the time, training and resources to make a really positive difference to patients’ lives.
Our focus must be, as it always has been, on the patient. If we do the right thing for patients, everything else will follow.
Mike Hannay
Election candidate
English Pharmacy Board
Royal Pharmaceutical Society
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