Politicians beg for ‘relatively modest investment’ to ‘stabilise’ pharmacy
Members of the legislative assembly (MLAs) have urged the government to “get behind” community pharmacies, provide the sector with a “modest” investment and get pharmacies to “do more”.
Northern Irish MLA’s have urged health minister Mike Nesbitt to “act now” and “stabilise” pharmacy with a “modest investment”.
Speaking in the Northern Ireland Assembly yesterday (October 1), Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) MLA for North Down Peter Martin said that “local pharmacies are struggling”.
“There have been 17 permanent local pharmacy closures since January 2023, and the health trusts did not intervene to ensure that those pharmacies remained viable,” he added.
Nesbitt stressed that funding is a “key challenge that pharmacies face” and asked that the department of health “recognise and value the importance of our community pharmacies”.
“I urge the Health Minister to, first, provide relatively modest investment to stabilise the sector and, secondly, to provide the platform for development to enable our pharmacies to do more,” he said.
“Before it is lights out”
Last week (September 24), DUP MLA for Fermanagh and South Tyrone Deborah Erskine also addressed the assembly with a plea for pharmacy.
She said her local pharmacy, Hughes Pharmacy, had staged “a day of action for the Save our Pharmacies campaign”.
“The staff were working with the lights out, and many of the people who came in wondered whether there had been a power cut,” she said.
“It was, however, being done to paint a picture of how it could be lights out for many community pharmacies the length and breadth of Northern Ireland if funding streams are not resolved soon,” she added.
“I trust that we will all get behind our local community pharmacies and ask the Health Minister to act now before it is lights out for them.”
Last month, the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) launched its second day of protest action, which continued its message “that the pharmacy funding model is broken, closures are unacceptable [and] the workforce crisis is hitting community pharmacies and their patients”.
It came as the NPA revealed plans to ballot its members for the very first time on work to rule action, which could see “a lot” of pharmacies shutting on Saturdays by the end of the year.
Meanwhile last week, new data from Healthwatch revealed that in 2023 alone, some 46,823 hours were lost to temporary closure – the equivalent of 5,852 standard pharmacy working days.
