Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I support the amendment. I would have put my name to it, had I had the opportunity. However, in Committee those on the Liberal Democrat Benches have tended to block up their own amendments and have not sought support from across the House, which is a great pity. My experience in dealing with the many drugs that my mother takes is that in fact pharmacists are often those who spot the doctor’s mistake. Our local pharmacists do an excellent job. My wider interest in this Bill and in pharmacists is that they play the proper, important role they need to play at local level in the health and well-being boards and with the planning at a local level of both preventive medicine and their jobs at dispensing. This is also about a local playing field in regulation, which is very important. This Bill offers probably the only opportunity that there will be in the next few years to put right this wrong. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will support this amendment—and if not this one, then one like it at a later stage in the Bill—and rectify this error.