The result of a snap C+D poll has shown an overwhelming 85% of pharmacy contractors and workers are in support of the National Pharmacy Association’s (NPA) ballot on work to rule action.

The poll comes after the NPA announced earlier this month that it will ballot its members for the very first time on the collective action and warned it could result in “a lot” of pharmacies shutting on Saturdays by the end of the year.

Health secretary Wes Streeting last week criticised the NPA for “an unhelpful degree of sabre-rattling and threats of collective action” at a Labour Party conference session in Liverpool.

Read more: Saturday shutdown: Pharmacy protest ballot could see weekend closures

He said that “the fact is collective action, whether by GPs or pharmacists, will harm patients and make the relationship with patients worse”.

But of the 105 votes in the poll of "small community pharmacies" last week, 27% of pharmacy owners / contractors voted "yes" in support of the work to rule ballot, with 58% of pharmacy workers also voting "yes" to bring the total to 85%.

Only 2% of pharmacy owners / contractors voted "no" along with 13% of pharmacy workers.

 

 

Streeting last week said that he understands “the scale of the challenge” for the sector but “could not understand from a tactical point of view” why collective action was threatened just “weeks into a brand-new government”.

“Those kinds of tactics only make things harder to turn around, not easier, make things harder for patients, not better, and make things harder for their colleagues in the NHS,” he added.

Read more: Streeting slams NPA ‘sabre-rattling’ over collective action

Pharmacist and newly elected Labour MP for North Somerset Sadik Al-Hassan voiced his support for Streeting's comments on X last week (September 27), saying that action from the NPA was “out of step” and “would have made more sense in August 2021 - year three of the funding settlement”.

“Strike action now it seems will only delay or damage a potential new settlement,” he added.

 

Unity?

 

In the context of the NPA’s call for pharmacy to unite and speak with one voice to government, C+D asked leading trade bodies and associations for their thoughts on the ballot.

The Company Chemists’ Association (CCA) said it “does not hold a position on how the NPA chooses to engage with its members” though chief executive Malcolm Harrison joined the NPA (and CPE) on a mission to Downing Street to deliver a petition calling for funding to be resolved earlier this month. 

Read more: NPA CEO Paul Rees talks ballots and bargaining power

As for Community Pharmacy England (CPE), it also stopped short of a direct endorsement of the ballot, but tacitly pointed to “relentless funding constraints” that have put community pharmacies in a “desperate and impossible position”.

“The government is already undertaking an initial spending review and this will be followed by a further comprehensive spending review and an NHS 10-year plan,” it added. “CPE is fully focused on making the most of all these opportunities to shape the future.”

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Community Pharmacy Wales (CPW), which like Community Pharmacy Scotland (CPS) has recently secured a 6% funding uplift, said CPW understands NPA members “expect their organisation to take appropriate action to ventilate their frustrations and to ensure decision makers are fully aware of the risks to community pharmacy if action isn’t taken”.

And it added that contractors have made “similar representations to CPW that we regularly convey to Welsh government and NHS Wales, [which] has resulted in a 6% increase in CPCF funding this year”.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) said that it will comment on the result, but not during the build-up. 

And Independent Pharmacies Association (IPA) CEO Dr Leyla Hannbeck does not support the ballot, telling the BBC earlier this week that “prematurely punishing patients by any type of strike action is unconscionable” and that engaging with Streeting et al should be done "in as constructive a way as possible”. 

Read more: ‘Enough is enough’: Whistles and crisis at #SaveOurPharmacies protest

The Pharmacists’ Defence Association (PDA) agreed that the sector needs “more funding" and said it has regularly offered to join the negotiating bodies to “directly support” negotiations.

It remains open to “any sensible conversation about a shared approach” involving all employer representative bodies “plus ourselves” as the “representatives of employed and locum pharmacists, who are an important and separate stakeholder group”.

More specifically on the ballot, it said that the “three major representative bodies representing those businesses, CCA, IPA and NPA” are “each taking different approaches to try and secure greater funding”.

It added that it believes a “consistent and unified” sector would have “greater negotiating power”, but said it hopes “between them and their current approaches they can nevertheless agree improved terms". 

“In regard to the NPA’s internal process, the PDA does not represent business owners or investors, and it is up to the members of the NPA to decide its position and what strategy and action it will take following the vote of its members,” the union told C+D.

Read more: Revealed: Almost 47,000 hours lost to temporary pharmacy closures last year

But it also reminded “all business owners that whatever their representative body decides to arrange, our members are not bound to support such an action and will continue to be focused on their professional responsibility to patients, including fully exercising the role of responsible pharmacist, where applicable”.

And it said that “employers should also remember that they cannot unilaterally change the working patterns or hours of work of employees to participate in such an action - contracts with employees and locums are entirely separate from the business’ own contract with the NHS and must still be honoured”.

 

Fewer hours, deliveries and unnecessary data sharing

 

Debate over the ballot comes after C+D revealed last week that almost 47,000 hours were lost to temporary closures in 2023 – the equivalent of 5,852 standard pharmacy working days.

The new data comes from 41 of England’s 42 integrated care boards (ICBs) and show that a total of 13,863 instances of temporary closures were recorded by ICBs between January 1 and December 31 last year.

NPA chief executive Paul Rees revealed to C+D that if pharmacists do vote to introduce work to rule measures, it would include sticking rigidly to a 40-hour a week contract and only operating on a Monday-Friday basis.

Read more: Global sum up £13m for Scottish pharmacies in new funding deal

After opening last week, the ballot will run for six weeks and ask questions to all NPA members in England, Northern Ireland and Wales.

Rees said that the ballot would also ask its members if they would consider withdrawing free deliveries and medicine dispensing packs, and not sharing data with the NHS unless there is a legal requirement to do so.

 

350,000 strong petition

 

The chief executive told C+D earlier this month that “the community pharmacy sector, for too long, has been disunited and that is one of the key drivers behind the plummeting funding for the sector, that the sector hasn't been able to put forward a united case to government”.

“I think our job is to be a unifying force in as much as one can be in a sector that has been challenged by disunity,” he added.

News of the ballot was announced on the NPA’s second day of action on September 19 as community pharmacies were sounding “the alarm about the crisis being faced by pharmacy”, which included turning off lights in the pharmacy, wearing black and ringing bells in protest.

Read more: CPW welcomes 6% funding increase for Welsh community pharmacies

It follows the first emergency protest in June when 6,000 pharmacies joined in the campaign and continued the NPA’s message “that the pharmacy funding model is broken, closures are unacceptable [and] the workforce crisis is hitting community pharmacies and their patients”.

The same day, Rees delivered the #SaveOurPharmacies petition, signed by 350,000 people, to 10 Downing Street with fellow pharmacy body chief executives including CPE’s Janet Morrison, Community Pharmacy Northern Ireland’s (CPNI) Gerard Greene and the CCA’s Malcolm Harrison.