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Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I support the amendment and the principles behind it. As well as providing important frontline healthcare information, community pharmacists know an enormous amount about the community they serve. They know when someone has been chronically ill. They have got to know the relative or the friend who has come in to collect medication time and time again. Quite often, if you go into a community pharmacy, you find that the community pharmacist is providing bereavement support after that person has died. They are also a source of advice about what to do with medication, equipment and other things that are left in the house that cause a great deal of distress. They are also able to identify youngsters who are at risk, for example, of unplanned pregnancy, and are able to have a quiet word with them in a non-threatening environment that is not associated with making an appointment to see the GP. Young girls go into the local chemist to get their tampons and sanitary towels, so they are used to going in and out, and under that aspect health promotion advice can be provided. We would lose community pharmacy services at our peril. It would not be until they had gone that we would find the negative health impact, particularly on the older population, those with disabilities and those who are lonely and isolated for whatever reason and of whatever age. That health impact would be devastating, and if we costed it, there would be an enormous cost to the country.