Wes Streeting should have a separate in-tray on his desk at the Department of Health and Social Care labelled ‘Urgent: Pharmacy.’ As the editor of a pharmacy magazine, I guess I would say that but any bias on my part is informed by the grim reality that community pharmacies, and thus patients, are in serious jeopardy.

At the top of that in-tray should be medicines shortages. In fact, I’d argue it should have headed the health secretary’s wider NHS to-do list, ahead of the junior doctors and the dentists. If shortages continue to go unchecked, general practice and A&E will be flooded with sick patients and chaos will ensue.

We know global manufacturing issues cause shortages but Streeting must get to grips with what’s happening in the UK. A couple of questions about medicines supply he should have asked himself by now; is the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency effectively regulating all wholesale distribution licence holders in the UK?

And if, for example, there are concerns about a wholesaler, is the MHRA following it up by visiting the warehouse to find out if they are providing a constant and timely supply of medicines to pharmacies? I’m not sure the MHRA under the Conservatives was doing either properly. (The Healthcare Distribution Association has consistently said its members have done nothing wrong).

And while Streeting is at it, he can fix a broken drug price concessions and margins system that is heaping unbearable pressure on pharmacies. But Streeting’s pharmacy’s in-tray would be overflowing with other issues that need fixing; core funding, Pharmacy First thresholds, workforce, stress and burnout.

Of course, all these problems are normally discussed between Community Pharmacy England and the government but we’re told Labour won’t be ready to resume 2024-25 talks before September. In other words, community pharmacy has no firm date. Who knows when discussions on the sector’s funding beyond 2025 will occur. Streeting, by the way, has already met the junior doctors and dentists.

In 2017 when he was shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth said Labour would “reverse” pharmacy’s funding cuts if they got into power.

Now there’s an excellent place for CPE to start whenever those talks finally resume.