Ms Sharon Foley:

We certainly have, and we know from the HEA that it has received expressions of interest to expand current pharmacy courses. Those expressions of interest are with the HEA and it will make a decision by the end of this month. If there is to be a new college, our preference in the immediate term, having worked with the universities, would be to expand the number of places on the current courses because they have the labs, the universities and the curriculum. That is not to say there would not be another university, but there is an awful lot of work involved in developing a new course. What we would like to see, therefore, particularly from the HEA, is that it is actioned and those increased number of places are active from next September.

To comment on the Brexit piece, because many of the pharmacists were trained in the UK, that channel has effectively dried up because students cannot afford to train there any more. It is not like there is a bank of pharmacists in the UK to come back; there is not. Therefore, we have to address this workforce shortage for the next few years fairly quickly, starting next September.