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By P3pharmacy editor Arthur Walsh

Our big interview this month is with Sadik Al-Hassan MP, the community pharmacist turned online superintendent turned Honourable Member for North Somerset. 

Last July he won the seat from Conservative grandee Liam Fox, and as our conversation reveals there are few apple carts he’s shy of upsetting. 

The National Pharmacy Association’s advice to members to limit services if the government fails to cover the sector’s increased National Insurance bill from this month? A misguided ‘strike’ and an act of near-betrayal, he tells me; Labour wants nothing more than to do business with the sector.

The soon-to-be-former NHS England (NHSE)? A bureaucratic behemoth whose passing few will mourn. 

It turns out he isn’t afraid to speak his mind. And naturally, he is bullish about Labour’s plans for health and breathing new life into public services more broadly. In his telling, societal pillars ranging from hospitals to policing to court service have all been left to rot in the last 15 years, driving up waiting times and piling pressure upon public servants. He believes his party’s agenda for investment will paint a fresh coat over this dire vista.

But he’s also honest about some of the areas where more attention is needed. He tells me that despite an explicit manifesto pledge to introduce a community pharmacy prescribing service, he has been presented with “no plan” for bringing this closer to reality: “I haven’t seen further detail.” 

Fellow pharmacist MP Taiwo Owatemi was equally fuzzy on the details when I interviewed her straight after the election result; one might have hoped for some progress in the intervening months. 

If Labour does fail to inject urgency into this project, it will be following in the footsteps of none other than NHSE, whose sluggishness in getting prescribing pilots off the ground has become notorious in recent years. More importantly, it will be letting down cohorts of newly qualified pharmacists, from next year onwards, who will be eager to put their skills to work. 

Of course, I am in the unfortunate position of writing this at a time when a contract announcement is, by all accounts, imminent. For all I know, this time next week Stephen Kinnock will have announced a Community Pharmacy Prescribing Service that is fully thought through and ready to implement. 

But there are other problems requiring urgent attention on which Labour has so far been silent. For instance, there have been rumblings for some years that the UK’s policies aimed at driving down the national drugs bill are too effective for the country’s own good.

A recent report from the industry – not unbiased, it must be said – claims that with new tax rises for manufacturers the country has become “uninvestable”.

If Wes and Co want to leave behind a grander legacy than tax rises on businesses, they’ll need to get real about these issues. Fast.