Sharon Keogan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. Last week, I addressed a number of issues concerning the flu vaccine and I welcome the measures that were brought in then.

The winter plan is a step in the right direction but the journey is far from complete. In its current form the HSE's winter plan is deficient in certain respects. I refer to the gross under-utilisation of the 1,800 community pharmacists who serve communities across the country and never closed their doors to people in need during lockdown. The Government gave a commitment to expand the role of community pharmacies in the programme for Government. The Government pledged to include pharmacies as part of the initiative to enhance primary and community care, thereby making the vast majority of healthcare services available to people in the home or close to home rather than in overcrowded hospitals. Now is the time to make good on that promise in the midst of a pandemic, when the need is so great, to maximise the use of all available resources and expertise. This is imperative not only to protect the health of the public but also to ease the burden on our overworked GPs, hospitals, doctors and nurses. There are a number of measures that could easily and quickly be introduced to improve the winter plan and further these objectives.

In terms of vaccinations, pharmacists are allowed to administer the pneumococcal vaccine to members of the older population. However, there is an issue both with the provision of the vaccine doses and the funding to roll it out through community pharmacies. I suggest that Connolly Hospital and even the HSE should sign a statutory declaration to supply and reimburse pharmacies for such work.If the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, is sincere in his intention to protect the vulnerable, then he must act on this proposal without delay. There is no excuse for any such delay. The Minister must act now, as the flu season approaches and the Covid numbers continue to rise.

I am not sure if the Minister of the State is familiar with the proposed minor ailments service. Its introduction was announced in 2016 but the proposal seems to have sat on the shelf ever since. There are other steps being taken to expand the role of pharmacies and relieve the ever-growing burden on GPs and hospital emergency departments. This effort would be enhanced by the immediate establishment of the minor ailments service, which would provide accessible healthcare for a variety of common ailments via the existing network of community pharmacies. We are lagging behind our neighbours in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland in this regard, where valuable primary care services are already provided through the pharmacy network. There is further evidence of the value of the proposal in a study undertaken by the home medicines service in the UK, which indicated that a comprehensive pharmacy-based minor ailments service could take on up to 1 million unnecessary GP visits annually. In the midst of the Covid pandemic, I know the Minister of State will see the value of introducing this scheme as a priority.