Bhayani’s Battlebus

What another week we’ve had! On Thursday, the NPA campaign day of action united Pharmacies across the UK to #SaveOurPharmacies. Thousands of pharmacies took part in a display of symbolic action to highlight the crisis in pharmacy funding. We want to make this a doorstep issue during the general election campaign.

We had an actual battle bus this week! Our Director of External Affairs, Gareth Jones, took our campaign van to visit member pharmacies in the constituencies of key parliamentary figures, to punch homes our messages about the financial crisis. Our tour kicked off in St Albans where Liberal Democrat deputy leader and health spokesperson Daisy Cooper met the NPA team to show her support for our campaign. The battle bus then went on to visit member pharmacies in key constituencies and to deliver campaign letters to the leaders Sir Keir Starmer, Rishi Sunak and Sir Ed Davey at their party HQs in London. This truly was an unprecedented show of unity! We are going to continue the fight for our fantastic members and amazing sector.

Also this week, the Health Foundation (an independent health think tank) published new analysis showing that an extra £38bn per year is needed to revive the NHS, and called for “politicians to be honest about the level of funding needed by the NHS”.