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Opinion polls frequently underline the degree to which the public appreciate
pharmacists’ expertise. Yet pharmacists are frequently criticised
for failing to promote themselves and their work sufficiently, failing
to engage with the political process and, thereby, failing to influence
those who make decisions affecting health care and pharmacy.
However, promoting pharmacy to those in power by lobbying politicians
can start with some simple, but effective, steps. And, in fact, pharmacy
has had significant some successes at lobbying those in power — in
particular the campaigns to retain control of entry regulations and over-the-counter
availability of products containing pseudoephedrine and ephedrine.
In addition, with the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat conferences
taking place over the next few weeks, during which the Royal Pharmaceutical
Society will be seeking to make pharmacy’s voice heard (see p329),
now is as good a time as any to begin engaging with the political process.
There is one key thing to remember when speaking to MPs and others about
pharmacy, Rob Darracott, chief executive of the Company Chemists’ Association,
believes. “Don’t assume that anyone, especially MPs, knows
anything about pharmacy,” he says. MPs want to get re-elected and
they want causes to champion, he adds, so they are likely to be keen
to find out more.
“Invite them behind the counter,” he says. “Most
people are unlikely ever to have seen what goes on in the dispensary
and people are normally amazed when you show them — but
remember to tidy up first.” Find a reason to invite your MP
However, you do need to find a reason to invite MPs to your pharmacy,
Mr Darracott stresses. “If you just ask people to pop round,
they may never get round to visiting, so you need a peg on which to
put your invitation,” he says.
“For instance, Alan Johnson talked last week about people getting care
from pharmacies. You could then write to your MP saying, ‘You may
have seen that Alan Johnson spoke about …’, explain how
you think that might work, or why you think it wouldn’t work, and
suggest they come to the pharmacy to see for themselves the services
you are
providing.”
You may not always need a pharmacy-related reason to invite politicians,
Mr Darracott adds. Newly elected MPs will be keen to visit, especially
if you are the first person to
invite them to a local pharmacy, as they will want to make links with
local business people and with those providing health care to their constituents.
Visits can also be tied in with local activities, Mr Darracott suggests. “Local
opinion formers like to be seen doing the rounds, so invite them,” he
says, “Refits are something I don’t think pharmacists make
enough of,” he adds. “With a refit or a new delivery van,
you can easily invite a local photographer along and the local press.
Journalists
like to have local people in their contacts book. Readers may know your
name or recognise your shop and if you are interesting
and willing to talk about a variety of issues, they are likely to contact
you when they want a comment on a particular issue.”
Linda Smith is a community pharmacist in Broxbourne and a local councillor
in Hertford, where her husband is mayor. She recommends that pharmacists
make best use of national awareness days. “With something like
the Blood Pressure Association’s Know Your Numbers Week, which
took place last week, you have a large national organisation putting
on a big publicity campaign and so it is worth using that to your advantage,” she
says.
The MP representing the constituency Mrs Smith works in has visited the
clinic to have his blood pressure taken and he invited the local media
along to report and take pictures. “Often groups like the Blood
Pressure Association contact local MPs across the UK telling them which
local pharmacies are carrying out tests,” she says. “Events
like that are good publicity for MPs, so they are often keen to come
along, and they are good for local pharmacies because they promote the
services we have on offer.”
Mrs Smith also believes that, when getting to know local MPs, personal
contact is, wherever possible, better than letter writing. “It’s
easy to just put a letter on the pile; it is much harder to ignore someone
you meet in person,” she points out. MPs can also be approached
at local community events, she adds.
“Find out what their interests
are and what other events they are attending and try to meet them there.
But remember there is a time and a place for everything and you need
to remember to be sympathetic and avoid antagonising people.”
In addition, letters from individual pharmacists are important to drive
home to politicians the importance of an issue, insists John
D’Arcy,
commercial director at Rowlands. “MPs may receive a press release
from an organisation saying pharmacists are incensed by some change.
But if they do not have a postbag full of letters from pharmacists angry
at the change, they may just think that the organisation is blowing the
issue out of proportion.
“The campaign on control of entry showed how
strong pharmacy can be — it mobilised consumers and the profession
to get behind a campaign that, at the start, many people thought was
dead in the water.”
Making the most of opportunities to engage with local decision makers
is also an important way of raising pharmacy’s profile and influencing
decision making but, to do so, local personal contacts need to developed. “Get
to know as many people as you can and talk about pharmacy whenever you
can,” Mrs Smith suggests. “Patients know about what pharmacy
can offer, but others may not.”
It is also helpful to become involved locally in other ways, she adds.
For instance, the previous mayor of Hertford selected Breathe Easy, a
charity for patients with breathing difficulties, as his chosen charity
during his term in office. When Mrs Smith met members of a local group
of the charity and they heard she was a pharmacist, she was invited to
come and talk at one of their regular local meetings. “Things like
that are about keeping pharmacy’s profile high and local awareness
of pharmacy high,” she says.
“You don’t necessarily have to have specialist knowledge to
speak with patient groups,” she adds. “I gave a talk to them
about pharmacy past, present and future. It was not aimed at patients with
breathing difficulties, but they found it interesting and useful, I think.
I’ve also been asked to give a talk to a St John’s Ambulance
group about the work that pharmacists do, which I am in the process of
arranging.” Be clear about your objectives
It is fundamental when raising issues to be clear about your intended
objectives, Mr D’Arcy, stresses. “Decide what your desired
outcome is and work out the best way to achieve that,” he says. “You
need to start by thinking about where pharmacy is now and where it
wants to be. And you need to say why what you are proposing will help — without
explaining that you are sure to fail to convince people to support
your cause.”
It is also important when speaking to politicians to talk in concrete
terms, he says. “If you want to talk about pharmacists being fully
fledged members of the primary care team, you need to look at what that
actually means — what you want pharmacists to be able to do — and
at how to make that happen. If you’re talking about practice-based
commissioning, you need to say why pharmacy needs to be involved.” Do your homework
When lobbying a politician on an issue, it is essential to argue the
case properly and be seen to be personally credible, Mr D’Arcy
adds. A lobbying pack — a few sheets of paper setting out aims
and explaining the key messages — is also helpful, he says.
However, he adds, it is essential that the messages are relevant to
the intended audience. “To do that, you need to understand their position
so that you can tailor yours to suit,” he says. “If, for
example, you want to have a role in diabetes, get in touch with Diabetes
UK and urge them to support you,” he says. “If they don’t
think pharmacists should have the role you envisage, then talk to them
and change your strategy.”
It is also important to consider when you might not want to communicate
all messages, he adds. “With the pharmacy campaign on pseudoephedrine,
that was something you wouldn’t necessarily want to highlight to
the public because you would be drawing their attention to a problem
they hadn’t thought of,” he says.
Mr Darracott recommends that before meeting a politician, it is worth
thinking about what you would like people to leave remembering. “If
you focus on two or three things simple things you want to talk about,
it will then be more likely they will remember them and follow them up,” he
says.
“And it may be worth having these written down so that you
can remind yourself of them during the visit and check you have covered
everything.” Play your part
Although national organisations have their part to play in developing
the profession, Mr D’Arcy believes that taking pharmacy forward
really comes down to the work of individual pharmacists. He points
out that it is often argued that there needs to be a high-profile publicity
campaign to promote pharmacy.
“Campaigns like that can work,” he
says. “But people will judge things by what they see happening
in their local pharmacy. Pharmacists on the ground are really the profession’s
public relations representatives, and so it is down to them to promote
the profession and to raise awareness of how pharmacy is moving forward.”
Zafar Khan: Learn to sell your
strengths
Zafar Khan is a community pharmacist
with a 24-hour pharmacy in Earl’s Court, London. He stresses
that, as with any other profession or group, pharmacists need to
speak to be
heard. “One speaker at the last parliamentary meeting I organised
had no hesitation in naming pharmacists, of all health professionals,
as the most inactive lobbyists,” he says.
Mr Khan believes
that pharmacists lack passion when raising issues of concern and
that they have failed to draw attention to the value they bring
through their accessibility. “Until we learn to sell our
strengths with passion, we will not be effective in our campaigning
and lobbying,” he says.
However, pharmacy has had some successes in lobbying, he points
out. “When we were organised in our campaign against the
Office of Fair Trading’s proposals to remove the control
of entry regulations we achieved positive results. We showed our
passion and got other groups and the community behind us. There
are certainly some lessons to learn from that.”
To be effective, lobbying needs to be disciplined, organised and
co-ordinated, Mr Khan believes. “An organised campaign makes
lobbying easier by drawing wider support from the media and relevant
groups of the public,” he says. “The use of print and
electronic media helps to raise awareness, increases understanding
and increases credibility, so that people take you seriously and
recognise your expert role.”
Pharmacists should know their local journalists, have their telephone
numbers and other contact details, and be aware of their deadlines,
Mr Khan believes. Before sending a press release to the media,
a decision should be made about who will act as spokesman or spokeswoman.
Whoever is chosen must be well informed, reliable and quotable,
and have good back-up materials to follow up any contact made,
he says.
In addition, any press releases should describe what pharmacists
have done and give new information. “You need to adopt an
appropriate tone and avoid jargon, and I would recommend keeping
the release to one side of A4 and sending it on headed paper,” he
says. “The point of the press release should be made clear
early on and it should clearly state who it is intended for — whether
that is the news desk, the health correspondent, or someone else.”
As well as contacting local media, pharmacists should also try
to familiarise local MPs with pharmacists’ professional role,
Mr Khan says. “Do not take it for granted that MPs understand
what we do. We should take opportunities, as appropriate, to explain
to them what our work involves. Brief MPs about issues relating
to local services, such as out-of-hours access, emergency hormonal
contraception, minor ailment schemes, blood pressure screening,
medicines use reviews and diabetes screening.”
Such briefings will enable MPs to represent pharmacists’ interests
better in Parliament and will also improve their understanding
of the benefits pharmacists bring to the local community. “You
can visit MPs’ surgeries or, better still, invite them to
your pharmacy — show them around and improve their understanding
of the services you are providing,” Mr Khan says.
“MPs
love to be seen to be helping their constituents with their concerns,
and involving local print and electronic media with a photo opportunity
will be a big plus for the MP and for promoting your cause.” |
Graham Phillips: Pharmacists
must begin to “do politics”
Graham Phillips, member of the Royal Pharmaceutical
Society’s Council and a community pharmacist in Hertfordshire,
believes that all pharmacists need to begin engaging seriously
with the political process.
“Nearly all the pharmacists I encounter proudly proclaim that they ‘don’t
do politics’,” he says. “Politics is, for some reason a dirty
word — and yet so much of our professional future is dependent upon the
decisions of politicians.”
Those who really believe that politics does not matter should, he says, consider
the effect of seeing on television the barracking Patricia Hewitt, then Secretary
of State for Health, received from disenchanted nurses protesting against NHS
cutbacks. “It was probably the final nail in her political coffin,” he
says.
“Likewise doctors are past masters at understanding the political
process: pressing the buttons of professional aspiration and pulling the levers
of financial success too. They talk about patients, whereas pharmacists talk
rhetorically.”
Pharmacists need to become much smarter at this if we are to compete effectively
in the realpolitik of health, he adds. “As long as pharmacists continue
to fight shy of politics, we will continue to punch below our weight in terms
of achieving our professional ambitions.”
Traditionally pharmacy always dealt directly with the Secretary of State for
Health, Mr Phillips points out. “Frank Dobson, the first Secretary of State
for Health during Tony Blair’s first term showed strong early support for
pharmacy and started to consult widely upon extended roles,” he says.
“However,
his successor, Alan Milburn, soon delegated responsibility for pharmacy to junior
ministerial level. Since then there have been eight changes in pharmacy minister,
the shortest-lived of whom, Lord Hunt has had two bites at the cherry and [second
time around] lasted only six months.”
This has been frustrating for pharmacists, Mr Phillips stresses, as they
have had continually to rebuild relationships. “Everything slows down while
the new minister gets up to speed and each minister takes a subtly different
approach to policy. Thus we have had neither continuity nor advocacy within government
for most of the past eight years, which goes some way to explaining the absence
of joined-up thinking and the mixed messages pharmacy has received.”
Pharmacists must also, he argues, stop laying the blame for all of pharmacy’s
ills at the doors of the Society. “The Society certainly has its faults,
but the problems the profession faces are both deeper and wider than those caused
by Lambeth, so we have to look deeper and wider than the Society for our solutions,” he
says.
“If the profession is really to move up to the premier league we
need to address the wider issues of pharmacy education, pharmacy culture and
take cognisance of the profound influence upon us of the wider politics of health. |
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal