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Health Bill

My Lords, Clause 26(1) inserts new subsection (7A) into Section 10 of the Medicines Act 1968. It enables us to make clear what a pharmacist has to do to satisfy the supervision requirements in respect of the preparation and assembly of medicines. Through this power we can specify which activities pharmacists must undertake themselves and when aspects of the preparation and assembly of a medicine can be delegated to other trained and competent pharmacy staff working under the supervision of the pharmacist. This power also enables us to prescribe conditions that must be met where a pharmacist supervises these activities remotely. However, the power does not relate to our proposals to enable the responsible pharmacist to delegate certain aspects of supervision for suitably trained and registered health professionals such as pharmacy technicians, which can already be achieved using order-making powers in the Medicines Act. I accept the spirit in which the noble Earl moved his amendment—to find out a little more about what we are up to in this area, if I may put it that way. Certainly, the exercise of the pharmacist’s responsibilities is not wholly dependent on his or her physical presence in the pharmacy at all times. I reassure the noble Earl that we recognise the need for parameters to be set on the pharmacist’s absence, but they should not, as now, constrain the pharmacist from using his extensive clinical training to offer services away from the pharmacy and working with other health professionals in the community. It is important that the pharmacy is seen as the responsible pharmacist’s main place of work, where he will spend most of his working time to exercise fully his responsibility for the safe and effective running of the pharmacy. However, like the noble Earl, I am not wildly enthused about fixing a minimum percentage of time; that would be arbitrary and would not deal with the range of circumstances that may exist. We intend to set out in the regulations the circumstances and conditions supporting the pharmacist’s absence from the pharmacy—for example, for arrangements to be in place for pharmacy staff to contact the responsible pharmacist when he is away from the pharmacy, or another available pharmacist, to provide advice. I assure the noble Earl and the House that we shall consult extensively on the development of the regulations in due course. In the mean time, we outlined how they might develop in an information paper published in January. If the noble Earl has not seen the paper, I can send it to him and to other noble Lords. We shall proceed with great care and caution in this area and will do so in full consultation with the pharmacists’ interests. We believe that this issue needs to be thrashed out in the consultation on the regulations, and I hope that the noble Earl will be more reassured by what I have said.