Parliament has been told that the Government's new strategy for community pharmacy is to be published "shortly".
In a Parliamentary written reply on November 4, the Minister of State for Social Care (Mr John Hutton) told Mrs Claire Curtis-Thomas (Lab, Corby) that the strategy, which was to be published soon, would "deal explicitly with the broader role that pharmacists can play in improving health and health care." Mr Hutton did not expand on the content of the strategy.
Mrs Curtis-Thomas had asked the Government what plans it had to enhance the role of pharmacists and other primary care professionals. In addition to his brief statement on the pharmacy strategy Mr Hutton said that it was intended that optometrists should be further trained to take their role beyond sight testing to working with general medical practitioners and ophthalmologists in the treatment of eye disease.
Other steps, such as the development of National Health Service walk-in centres, primary care groups and personal medical services pilots. would provide a wider range of opportunities for primary care professionals to expand their roles, he went on. Nurses, in particular, would benefit from the generalised roll-out of prescribing rights for all nurses with district nursing or health visiting qualifications.
Responding to a further question on what measures were being taken to support local pharmacies, from Sir Peter Emery (Con Devon East), Mr Hutton said: "The Government supports all pharmacies in England by ensuring that they are paid fair and appropriate remuneration for the services they provide on behalf of the NHS."
A Department of Health spokesman told The Journal on November 16 that the pharmacy strategy would probably not be published before next year.