Gary Lineker was taken briefly off the air at the BBC last month for tweeting his views but his fellow presenters united around him. Pharmacists need a cause to unite around and the Save our Pharmacies campaign might provide just that, says Nick Kaye…

One morning recently, when inputting a patient’s details into PharmOutcomes (other IT platforms are available), the computer informed me that she was 25 years old as I typed 1998, the year of her birth.

‘So what?’ you may say. ‘So what’ indeed! For me, 1998 was the year I joined the Pharmaceutical Register and it hit me that I have been qualified for 25 years. Twenty-five years! How did that happen? This caused me to pause and reflect.

Ever since I became a pharmacist, I have heard people like me who are in local and national leadership positions say the profession is at a turning point, we are at a crossroads, and we all need to pull together.

I now find myself doing the same. Right now the daily reality for all of us in community pharmacy means that something must change. I love my job and it is hugely rewarding, but as an independent community pharmacist, it’s a way of life as much as a professional choice.

I do believe, though, that the sector is in genuine crisis brought on by a lack of core funding in England. Look at the sales of pharmacies by large multiples. If you had told me in 1998 that the entire LloydsPharmacy network would be up for sale, I would have said you were crazy, but the second largest chain in the UK is being sold off! If that is happening, we are all in serious trouble.

A crisis, however, can bring opportunity. A phrase I’ve heard before is ‘never waste a good crisis’. Some of you will see opportunity in this crisis by buying Lloyds branches that are up for sale. No doubt you will make a success of them, but it will be a challenge.

Does the current crisis, not only in pharmacy but across the wider health system, allow for us to truly move in the right direction from the proverbial crossroads? ‘Crossroads’ may not be the right word, but change will have to come.

Change has always been seen as a new clinical future for the profession. I strongly believe all of us are already ‘clinical’ every day, in the prescriptions we check, in the OTC sales we make and in the advice we give.

I also believe that the supply of medicines through a community pharmacy has to be, and should be, the cornerstone of what we provide to our patients, and we should not under-sell how well we all perform this task.

But if we want to increase the funding envelope, we will be asked to add value to that supply function. We will need to formalise how we all deal with the increasing demand within our communities and play a key role in primary care.

If that doesn’t happen, we will be left stranded with an ever-decreasing funding pot. I hope we will choose to embrace that change and that we are given the opportunity to do so.

So, if this is a crisis and we are at a crossroads, what about hope? As I write, it’s hard to forget that Gary Lineker was taken off air at the BBC because he tweeted his views on the government’s immigration policy.

Whatever your views on this, it has shown how the use of language is powerful and can provoke a reaction. Care is needed when choosing our words - something I am not always good at.

But the episode saw an amazing reaction from his fellow presenters, who united around a common cause. The cause in this case was freedom to speak up and speak out against power.

Community pharmacy needs to find that cause to unite around and I see the Save our Pharmacies campaign, launched by leading national pharmacy bodies to boost calls for fair pharmacy funding in England, as a positive start.

And we need it! For many independents, when we are in our pharmacies and caring for our patients, hope is sometimes the hardest part. To hope for something better when we are living in the eye of the storm is almost impossible.

We are hardened realists, but we need to believe that better times lie ahead. I believe, as a pharmacy leader, we need to carry this message to every stakeholder. We need to balance the crisis at the crossroads with hope.

I know that in England, we are coming to the end of our five-year fixed contract and I hope that better is on its way.

Nick Kaye is a community pharmacist based in Newquay and vice-chair of the National Pharmacy Association. These are his personal views.