The pharmacy minister has expressed concern about the number of pharmacy closures, Community Pharmacy England (CPE) has reported from its event at the Labour Party Conference.

Stephen Kinnock, the Labour MP for Aberafan Maesteg and Department of Health and Social Care minister with responsibility for community pharmacy and primary care, also said that work between pharmacists and GPs needed to be collaborative, not competitive, according to CPE.

Mr Kinnock joined Labour MP for Exeter and new chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Pharmacy (APPG) Steve Race, as well as CPE chief executive Janet Morrison and chief executive of health charity The King's Fund Sarah Woolnough, at an event co-hosted by CPE and think tank Reform at the Labour Party Conference yesterday (23 September).

CPE noted that, crucially for the community pharmacy sector, the minister outlined his priorities of shifting care from hospital to the community, as well as from analogue to digital and from sickness to prevention.

'The minister also said that we have to get GPs and pharmacists as well as the government around the table to ensure working is collaborative, not competitive,' CPE added in its report from the event.

The Pharmacist understands that formal negotiations on the community pharmacy contractual framework for 2024/25 are yet to recommence, but that the negotiator and government are in regular dialogue on important issues.

CPE has previously shared that it has met with and briefed the pharmacy minister, and expects contract negotiations 'to resume soon'.

'We do not know yet precisely when negotiations will re-start nor how quickly they will reach conclusion, but we will issue further information as soon as we have it,' CPE chief executive Janet Morrison has said.

Also at the Labour Party Conference event, Mr Kinnock suggested that the NHS 10-year plan, which the government is expected to launch soon following the Darzi review into the NHS, would 'require culture change and reform'.

In his report, Lord Darzi highlighted the accessibility of community pharmacy as ‘one of the great strengths of the health service in England’.

But he suggested that 'on current trajectory, community pharmacy will face similar access problems to general practice, with too few resources in the places where it is needed most'.

In response, community pharmacy leaders called for urgent action to 'stop the rot' of pharmacy closures and to invest in the sector.

The Darzi report also suggested that growth in the wider general practice team, including pharmacists, has been a 'positive development' against a backdrop of fewer and unevenly distributed GPs.