Pharmacists need to improve their lobbying of MPs
Pharmacists are useless at lobbying, according to Jim Devine, Labour MP for Livingston, West Lothian. He was speaking at a meeting of the Chiltern region of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society entitled “Can pharmacy better influence the political and policy agenda at a local or national level?”, in Westminster this week.
“You are the worst professional group I know at lobbying,” he
told participants, explaining that he has been an MP since October 2005
and,
during that time, he has never had a pharmacist attend one of his constituency
surgeries or write him a letter. In contrast, he currently has 124 letters
from nurses in his constituency who are angry about the staged pay increase
and has had recent visits from 30 junior doctors who have been affected
by changes in their job application process.
He suggested that effective ways by which pharmacists can lobby Parliament
include attending constituency surgeries, organising local conferences
and inviting MPs to speak, and asking MPs to raise issues through adjournment
debates and early day motions in the House of Commons. “We are
your servants. We are a resource to you. Please use us,” he said.
Norman Lamb, Liberal Democrat MP for North Norfolk and shadow health
spokesman, said that he has had more encouraging experience of engaging
with pharmacists and has been lobbied regularly by pharmacists in Norfolk.
“For a profession that is necessarily disparate, I believe that
you are starting to get your act together in terms of becoming an effective
lobbying
force. But clearly there is much more that you can do,”he said.
Mr Lamb suggested that the profession should identify a particular week
for an assault on all members of Parliament. This should be done on a
concerted national basis so that it demonstrates the value pharmacists
can offer to the health service, he said. He warned that writing letters
is not enough and urged pharmacists to book an appointment with their
MP.
Mr Lamb added that effective engagement is needed at the top as well
as locally. “As a profession, you have to ensure that, at the top
end, there is effective engagement with ministers. You need to ensure
that your leaders are disseminating information down so that your lobbying
with your own MPs can be at its most effective and the messages you are
sending out are similar across the country.”
Graham Phillips, a member of the Society’s Council, highlighted
the Society’s lobbying toolkit (PDF 60K).
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