While the Government moves on from its celebration of Prime Minister Tony Blair's first 1,000 days in power, another anniversary with more relevance to pharmacy is approaching. February 20 marks 600 days since the then Health Secretary Frank Dobson announced, on June 30, 1998, that a strategy for community pharmacy would be published "in the autumn" (PJ, July 4, 1998, p14).
That autumn, and the next, has been and gone. Mr Dobson, too, has disappeared into the wilderness that is the London mayoral election, seemingly taking our strategy with him.
Why are we still waiting and, more pertinently, what exactly are we waiting for? The long delay has allowed the momentum of the Pharmacy in a New Age process to dissipate. Through PIANA, pharmacy was on the way to finding its own strategy for moving forward. Now, once again, we are waiting for someone else to provide it for us.
One way in which community pharmacy could make the move into the future is through medicines management. As we report this week (p200) the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee has submitted a request to the Department of Health for £1.8m to fund its ambitious trial programme. If the Department cannot settle on its strategy, the the least it could do is accept this request and let pharmacy make its own way forward.