Gareth Jones, public affairs manager at the NPA, highlights a lobbying success for pharmacy at European level

Recent news bulletins have been dominated by the relationship between the UK and the European Union. Indeed, there was wide publicity over Prime Minister David Cameron’s attempt to block the appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker as President of the European Commission, the Executive body of the EU. But now community pharmacy has proved to be rather more successful at winning an argument at EU level, by lobbying to overturn one of Mr Juncker’s first policy decisions.

When we think about community pharmacy we rightly acknowledge its place within the healthcare environment, providing high quality care and services to patients. However, the new President of the EU recently announced that responsibility for medicines would be moved from the health to the enterprise directorate within the European Commission.

As pharmacy is so closely aligned with pharmaceuticals, key decisions affecting community pharmacy would have been taken out of the hands of those with responsibility for, and a detailed understanding of, healthcare. This would have sent a message to others within the Commission and the European Parliament that pharmacy was not really part of the health sector and, with more regulations that affect community pharmacy being developed and approved at EU-level, there was a risk that the key role of pharmacy as a healthcare provider would have been overlooked in policy formation.

So, the Pharmaceutical Group of the European Union (PGEU), on which the NPA, RPS and PSNI sit as the UK delegation, swung into action to challenge this decision. A coalition was built involving PGEU and a wide cross-section of European health bodies representing doctors, dentists, patients, public health specialists and about 20 others. The group wrote to Mr Juncker and lobbied the European Parliament calling on the EU to focus on protecting health and patient safety and not to view medicines as primarily an industry or competition issue. Members of the European Parliament were lobbied, and many came out in support.

I am pleased to report that the decision has now been reversed, and the Commission will continue to consider pharmacy policy within the context of health. Mr Juncker has now acknowledged that “medicines are not goods like any others”.

Whilst this whole episode may seem distant to the everyday work of community pharmacists in the UK, it is important that the EU has a proper understanding of, and regard for, our sector. Over the next five-year period, the EU is likely to undertake a fundamental review of legislation on health and veterinary medicines, as well as implementing the Falsified Medicines Directive. PGEU has developed a blueprint for pharmacy across Europe as another part of its work to ensure that community pharmacy is understood and has a strong voice in the corridors of power in Brussels and Strasbourg.