As contractors in England wrestle with how to implement a year’s worth of cuts in four months with just weeks’ notice, the NPA launched legal action to challenge the Department of Health’s imposed funding settlement.

Getting the lawyers involved is never a course of action to be taken lightly, not least because dragging the Government to court is hardly likely to endear you to representatives with whom you’ll eventually have to sit with again around the negotiating table. However, frankly, the sector was left with no choice – a line had to be drawn.

There would appear to be, from pharmacy’s standpoint, a persuasive argument that the DH’s approach has been flawed and this needs to be tested in law. Other legal challenges may follow, maybe even a judicial review.

Having inherited the problem from his predecessor, pharmacy minister David Mowat now finds himself in a difficult position and was sent from a hostile LPC conference to an opposition day debate on the cuts at the Commons with a flea in his ear from PSNC’s Sue Sharpe. His performance on both occasions was unconvincing to say the least and he really should look up the word ‘clinical’ in the dictionary when referring to community pharmacists.

Criticism is growing, too, of his officials at the Department of Health over what is perceived to be a lack of expertise or even basic understanding of community pharmacy, along with a host of policy shortcomings and failures. The boos that rang out at the LPC conference at mention of the chief pharmaceutical officer, an unprecedented occurrence in my experience, told its own story.