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Martin Luther King once said, ‘if you can’t fly, then run. If you can’t run, then walk. If you can’t walk, then crawl. But whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.’ The same applies to community pharmacy, says Nick Kaye…

We have a new government and after 14 years without Labour in power, there is an expectation for change and a genuine feeling of hope.

But hope can be dangerous at times, although we must hang on to it. However, it also made me think about the word ‘change’ and what that means to each of us.

I think it’s fair to say that ‘change’ for us in community pharmacy is a radical change in funding, an increase so that we are properly remunerated for the things we do now.

Perhaps ‘change’ to some is a complete change in the way we are funded and what we are asked to do and how we use our skills.

So, because change can mean different things to all of us, I thought I would look at what change has meant to leaders throughout history and I thought it was really interesting.

John F Kennedy Jr once said: “Change is the law of life, and those who look only to the past and present are certain to miss the future.” Maybe those who aspire and believe in a new pharmacy contract would subscribe to this view of the world.

Albert Einstein once said: “The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.” Maybe those who said we must have more funding to stay still would apply this to the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England in changing their view of what we should be paid for.

Perhaps the answer for community pharmacy as it continues on its journey of change is both. It is absolutely true that we need more funding. We cannot continue with funding at current levels.

The hardest part of being the chair of the National Pharmacy Association is listening to members, collages and friends saying ‘Nick, when will this funding crisis end?’ And them saying to me ‘tell me it’s going to get better.’

I’ve seen pharmacists in tears who have remortgaged houses and borrowed money from relatives to keep the pharmacies they care so much about going.

Their communities would be lost without them and that is where hanging on to hope is critical but can be so hard. However, I believe things will change and things will get better. And most of all, I believe change is coming.

I believe those changes will be an uplift in funding to stabilise our network in doing what we do now, but then I believe fundamental change of what we are asked to do as community pharmacists is coming too. We all need to be ready for that change.

The reason I believe these things are two-fold is, one, we know there is no more money because the country is broke. The second reason is if you listen to the new secretary of state for health Wes Streeing, he talks about the NHS being broken but is on a mission to repair it.

That mission is summed up by ‘care not being in hospitals but in homes’ and ‘analogue to digital’ and ‘from illness to prevention.’

Streeing is very clear on his unswerving commitment to make these three changes and they may seem obvious, but when they happen there will be a fundamental shift in what the NHS will expect from all its providers.

I believe community pharmacy can benefit from all of these things but it will require leadership and new thinking in what we are doing and how we are paid for it.

The next question, then, is how will community pharmacy leaders advocate for community pharmacy in this new world? This is where another quote comes to mind; Henry Ford once said: “If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said they wanted faster horses.”

Maybe this is where the two initial hopes for change meet. We may want more funding for doing the same stuff but once the sector has been stabilised, that will not fit into the new world the NHS will need us to be part of.

Maybe this is an unpopular view but it is one we cannot ignore. I believe we need to start being brave and dealing with these issues as a sector.

If we don’t, community pharmacy will be bypassed and we will miss out completely.

My belief is best summed up by Martin Luther King. “If you can’t fly, then run. If you can’t run, then walk. If you can’t walk, then crawl. But whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.”

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