Clause 28 - The responsible pharmacist
Health Bill
3:45 pm
Andrew Murrison (Shadow Minister, Health; Westbury, Conservative)
I will deal with amendments Nos. 17 and 19. The first amendment would delete in relation to the provision that
“A person may not be the responsible pharmacist in respect of more than one set of premises at the same time”,
the words
“except in circumstances specified by the Health Ministers in regulations.”
We want to make it clear that a pharmacist may be responsible for just one pharmacy at any one time and the amendment would remove the expectation that Ministers may be able to alter that.
If the Minister is not minded to accept the amendment, I hope that she will at least give the Committee an idea of the circumstances she envisages in which it would be acceptable for a pharmacist to supervise more than one pharmacy. In a sense, I suppose that she has covered some of that ground already, but now is an opportunity to explore further the rationale behind the limitation of the number of premises that a pharmacist can supervise.
The Minister has been good and has answered the worries of hon. Members. Nevertheless she has not really dealt with the central issue of whether we are being driven by a safety case or by a need to protect and enhance the extended role of the pharmacist. As I have said about previous clauses, it is increasingly my view that the safety case can be made for remote supervision. Perhaps we are not at that stage at the moment. We would have to explore the matter further, but we are going in that direction.
The case for the extended role of the pharmacist is far less clear and that is why I am suggesting in a probing way that we delete the words whereby pharmacists can supervise more than one set of premises at Ministers’ discretion. That is the intention of amendment No. 17.
Amendment No. 19 is a little more complicated because it would establish parameters under which pharmacists may operate. As part of the amendment, we have laid out a number of parameters that Ministers would have to consider in drafting regulations in relation to the responsible pharmacist. Those parameters concern the establishment of clear lines of accountability within pharmacies, the provision for the responsible pharmacist to be contactable when absent, the maximum time for the responsible pharmacist to return to the pharmacy, and provision for the responsible pharmacist to justify any absences. In other words, we are saying that the pharmacist will normally be at the pharmacy.
We are saying that it is not really acceptable for pharmacists to regard their pharmacy as a base camp from which they operate an itinerant practice, so that they cannot reliably be found at the pharmacy at any one time. That approach seems to cut across the developing role of the pharmacist that we have seen in recent years, which we regard as a fairly positive thing. I would be concerned if it became the rule rather than the exception that pharmacists were absent from their premises and doing, other albeit worthwhile, things. I hope that the Minister will consider our amendments favourably.