Editor’s viewpoint: Good ideas are not enough

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The Government’s 10 Year Health Plan ticks many of the right boxes – on paper. There’s a welcome shift towards prevention, neighbourhood-based care, digital access, and yes, plenty of mentions of an extended role for community pharmacists.

Areas highlighted include long-term condition management as the prescribing agenda gathers pace, and disease prevention, where the sector has an excellent track record with vaccinations. That visibility matters.

So far, so good. However, many in pharmacy will view this plan with cautious optimism at best. We’ve been here before. Neighbourhood health centres bear more than a passing resemblance to Lord Darzi’s polyclinics of the previous Labour administration. Remember them? The same rhetoric about integration and access surrounded this earlier version of under-one-roof primary care, yet ultimately they failed miserably, seen as duplicative and costly. 

Pharmacy’s view was brilliantly captured by NPA vice-chair Sukhi Basra: “You call it neighbourhood healthcare. We call it a Tuesday. Stop reinventing what already exists; start investing in what’s always been here.”

Labour’s latest plan to save the NHS – high on ambition, low on detail – risks hitting the rocks as far as pharmacy is concerned unless it confronts some hard truths. Where is the detail on funding, workforce capacity or meaningful support for implementation? NHS England has one foot in the grave and ICBs are being shredded. Who will lead this transformation?

That said, the plan’s vagueness could be pharmacy’s chance. It leaves space for the sector’s leaders and negotiators to shape what “neighbourhood care” actually looks like – with community pharmacy firmly embedded at its heart. But good ideas are not enough. Sustainable funding is crucial if this plan is to deliver for patients and for pharmacy.

The hard work starts now.