We will make sure pharmacy's Covid story is heard

As a community pharmacy body given core participant status, the NPA will have the right to make opening and closing statements, consider evidence provided to the inquiry and propose questions to be asked of witnesses.

It is easy to be sceptical about public inquiries – and recommendations sometimes take a long time to emerge – but the process itself provides an opportunity to tell important stories along the way.

That is why the lawyer appointed by the NPA to present to the inquiry has already given an account of the commitment typical of so many pharmacies during the pandemic when he addressed the inquiry’s chair, Baroness Hallett, and the assembled legal teams, public and press at the opening session of this phase of the public inquiry.

Powerful account

The powerful account comes from husband and wife Pete and Sukhi Johal, who co-own Calow Pharmacy in Chesterfield. In order to safeguard against the whole pharmacy team falling ill during Covid, they split the group in half – Sukhi leading one half of the team, Pete the other. Whichever of the pair was working slept in a hotel for that week.

“At the end of the week when I was working, I checked I was symptom-free before going home,” said Pete. “Even then, the family would move to a separate room and I would go straight to have a shower and put my clothes in a bag. Only then would I come down to the family. We would spend a day together, then we would swap. We did that for 10 weeks. 

“In 23 years in pharmacy this has been the most challenging time of my career, but it has been the most rewarding as well. We have not let our patients down; we’ve come through it.”

Excluded

Despite such commitment, it is a sad fact that community pharmacists seemed often to be an after-thought for decision- makers during the pandemic.

For example, pharmacies initially had to source and fund their own PPE. Pharmacy workers were not initially recognised as key workers, which would have enabled their children to attend school while they worked. There were also delays in the provision of Covid tests for pharmacy teams. 

Worst of all, community pharmacy was initially excluded from the scheme announced by the Department of Health and Social Care in April 2020 to pay £60,000 when a health or social care worker died from Covid-19 in the course of their work.

The inquiry is an historic opportunity to place on record the achievements of community pharmacy during the pandemic – as well as presenting practical proposals for change that could benefit the whole country for generations to come.