Pharmacists were described by Dr Liam Fox (Shadow Secretary of State for Health) as "the most underused facilities we have "when he addressed a meeting of the Health and Medical Public Relations Association in London on October 26.
Dr Fox said that he intended to put a great deal more emphasis on health screening than was done at present. Better screening programmes could reduce the cost of running the system.
"I intend to use pharmacists as much as I can in that, "he said.
Pharmacists had, in Dr Fox's view, also a role to play in mental health.
When psychiatric patients were discharged from acute units into the community, it was expected that they would be cared for by the community psychiatric team, but very often the holes in the safety net were too wide.
Therefore, Dr Fox wanted to bring in a range of policy options, one of which would be a set of orders whereby a consultant when discharging a patient on antipsychotic medication could stipulate that a patient would have to attend a named pharmacist on a daily basis for a defined period of time to have his or her medication dispensed and administered.
In other words, said Dr Fox, for a period of time after discharge, it would be known within 24 hours if patients were not taking their medication, not waiting a week until they had another acute psychotic episode or harmed themselves or a member of their family or the public.