My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their kind words and messages. I now have a tentative diagnosis and when I get my medication I hope to be functioning at 100% soon.
These amendments are on hub and spoke dispensing, where a hub pharmacy dispenses medicines on a large scale, often by making use of automation, preparing and assembling the medicines for regular spoke pharmacies that supply the medicines to the patient. My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones has given a detailed account of how hub and spoke works.
When the five-year funding contract for pharmacy in England was announced, the Government also pledged to change legislation so that independent pharmacies could operate this hub and spoke dispensing model. My noble friend tabled Amendment 29, which would ensure that the Government consult stakeholders on how hub and spoke is used and agree a framework with the support of the relevant sectors. This will ensure that the expected savings and efficiencies, and new healthcare services via pharmacies, can be delivered.
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The House has debated at length the enhanced role that pharmacies can have in access to community health services. My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones, the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, and the noble Lords, Lord Lansley and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, all referred to the extra things that pharmacies can do, and indeed have done during Covid. I extend my thanks to all pharmacies and pharmacists.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: many people use their pharmacies to ask about basic health issues, to get a flu jab or the regular off-the-shelf medicines. As the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, remarked, an effective local pharmacy takes huge pressure off GP practices. If the Minister is unable to accept Amendment 29, can she confirm what the Government would propose by way of legislation? Can she guarantee a proper consultation? I am sure that noble Lords would instinctively prefer primary to secondary legislation and be happy to accept this amendment.