The week in Parliament – w/c 28th October 2024

Welcome to the APPG on Pharmacy weekly Parliamentary update. Set out below is a summary of key parliamentary and policy developments in community pharmacy from the week just gone.

Announcements

Autumn budget 2024

On Wednesday (30th October), Rachel Reeves put investment in the NHS at the centre of Labour’s first Budget in 14 years as she promised to ‘fix the foundations and deliver change’.

Despite an additional £22.6 billion being promised for day-to-day healthcare spending, there were no specific commitments relating to funding uplifts for the community pharmacy sector.

Key announcements relating to healthcare included:

  • Support the delivery of Labour’s manifesto commitment to provide 40,000 extra appointments per week

  • Invest more than £2 billion in NHS technology and digital to ensure all trusts have access to electronic patient records, improve cyber security and enhance patient access through the NHS app

  • Upgrade over 200 GP surgeries across

  • Continue the delivery of the New Hospital Programme

  • Strengthen the UK’s pandemic preparedness and health protection

  • Open new mental health crises centres

  • Protect R&D budgets with a real terms increase in funding for the NIHR to support a revolution in research, life sciences and med-tech

  • £70 million for new radiotherapy machines

 Key Parliamentary Activity

Spoken contributions

NHS Winter Readiness – Wednesday 30th October 2024. Full transcript available here.

  • Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat, North Shropshire) outlined the critical role that pharmacists play in supporting patients in the community over the winter months.

  • Jim Shannon (DUP, Strangford) indicated the role for the PharmacyFirst scheme in alleviating pressures on the healthcare system in the coming months.

  • Dr Danny Chambers (Liberal Democrat, Winchester) argued that pharmacies need more support in the coming months to ensure they can always provide benefit to the public, at all times.  

Written Questions:

There were 9 written questions relating to Pharmacy answered in the House of Commons this week. These can be viewed on Hansard here.

Answers were received from Ministers to the following questions: