Community pharmacy is the part of the health service that is closest to most people in Britain, but it has been undervalued for far too long.

 

We’ve lost more than 1,200 community pharmacies over the last five years under the Conservatives’ watch. Many more have been forced to reduce opening hours, services, and staff, disproportionately affecting communities that need them most.

 

Labour wants to reverse this shocking trend and put pharmacies at the forefront of our health service.

 

It will mean slowly shifting the emphasis on funding from hospitals, where Britain currently ranks towards the top of the world in spending tables, to primary care, where we rank towards the bottom.

 

Read more: What’s on the pharmacy general election wish list?

 

But funding alone is not enough — we also need reform.

 

We will help the NHS to become a Neighbourhood Health Service, with more care in the community, closer to people’s homes. Community pharmacies are critical to this mission.

 

Pharmacists have years of training, huge expertise and experience, and it’s about time we made proper use of them. Labour will get them working to the top of their license.

 

We want community pharmacies playing a greater role in healthcare, with more focus on their expertise in prescribing and medicines management.

 

Read more: C+D election tracker: Labour lead under threat in penultimate pharmacy poll

 

Pharmacists should be helping manage long-term conditions like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and high blood pressure. Under a Labour Government, they will also help in tackling the serious issue of overprescribing, responsible for thousands of avoidable hospital admissions every year.

 

We will also put pharmacies at the forefront of the rapid innovation in life sciences over the coming years.

 

With Labour’s plans to set up national clinical trial registries and to send alerts to eligible patients through the NHS app, it will be easier for the life sciences sector to run clinical trials in the community and to recruit candidates. Pharmacies will play a big part in this work, developing the medicines and treatments of the future.

 

Contrast this to the Conservative’s record on pharmacy, which has left it at breaking point. Rishi Sunak says he wants to put pharmacies first but in reality, he has left the sector to rot while placing higher burdens on staff.

 

Read more: Rishi Sunak: 'Pharmacies are the lifeblood of our communities - Labour has no plan'

 

As Chemist + Druggist readers will be all too aware, pharmacists across England have been driven to desperation, wearing black and dimming the lights in protests highlighting the grim circumstances they now find themselves in.

 

Two-thirds of pharmacies in England have had to reduce their opening hours since 2015 and many pharmacists are struggling to cope with the pressures of an increase in demand.

 

The choice at this election is clear. Change with Labour, who will place value in pharmacists to help tackle the biggest crisis it is ever faced. Another five years of the Conservatives would be like handing back the matches to the arsonists.

 

Wes Streeting has been Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care since 2021

 

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