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Letters to the Editor
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Department of Health
Have your say about the future of pharmacy
From Dr H. Stoate, MP
As reported in last week’s edition, (PJ, 19 August, p210)
the All-Party Pharmacy Group held its first evidence session in our “Inquiry
into the future of pharmacy”. Asthma UK and Which? gave evidence
in a lively session covering a broad range of issues, including the public
perception of pharmacy, access to services and control of entry.
The group found this evidence session extremely useful. It demonstrated
how much we can learn from engaging with key stakeholders to think about
how pharmacy develops its role in the NHS.
We will be holding more evidence sessions over coming months where we
will hear from a broad range of witnesses, including the Department of
Health, the NHS, other health professions, and the profession of pharmacy
itself.
As well as these evidence sessions, we are keen to hear from any other
interested parties, including pharmacists, who have ideas or views on
the profession’s current and future role in frontline health care.
These can be based on experiences they may have had with other primary
care providers, interactions they have had with patients, or general
views they may have about the future of pharmacy.
We have produced a questionnaire, available on our website,
which pharmacists can use to provide us with their thoughts. It is not
necessary for all of the questions to be answered and instead thoughts
or anecdotal evidence can be put in an e-mail, which can be sent directly
to us.
Once all the evidence has been gathered, we will produce a report with
recommendations for the profession, policy makers and other stakeholders,
which will be presented to the Department of Health.
I encourage pharmacists to submit their thoughts to the inquiry. This
is an excellent opportunity to have their say on how the profession of
pharmacy develops in future years.
I look forward to hearing pharmacists’ thoughts and chairing future
evidence sessions. I am confident that these will generate further interesting
ideas and lively debate, and our aim is to produce a report that helps
to shape pharmacy services in the years ahead.
Howard Stoate
Chairman,
All-Party Pharmacy Group
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal