 Can I ask the members of the public leaving in the gallery to do so quietly? As the Parliament is still in session, we are on the next item of business. That is a members' business debate on motion 16544, in the name of Alexander Stewart on community pharmacy Scotland. This debate will be concluded without any questions being put. Can I ask those members who wish to speak in the debate to press their question button? I call on Alexander Stewart to open the debate. Mr Stewart, please. I am delighted and grateful for the privilege of being able to open my members' business debate in recognition of the work of community pharmacy Scotland, or CPS. I would also like to extend a warm welcome to guests from CPS who are joining us in the public gallery, Matt Bartley, director of operations and public affairs officer, Caroline Rooks. This is a highly significant debate, as CPS is the organisation that represents community pharmacy contract owners in every aspect of their lives. CPS is the voice of those healthcare professionals and they deliver pharmaceutical care to people at their communities right across Scotland. CPS is in power to represent the owners of Scotland's 1,257 community pharmacists, and they are there to negotiate on behalf and with the Scottish Government. That negotiation would normally cover all matters in terms of service contracts, NHS ability and the services that they provide. CPS works on the development of a new pharmaceutical care service, ensuring that the framework exists to allow owners of Scotland's community pharmacists to deliver those services. Those contracts put the care of the individual right at the centre, which focus on the pharmaceutical care and improving clinical outcomes for everyone. Community pharmacy contracts and their employee pharmacists are playing an integral role and a very increasingly important role in maximising the therapeutic outcomes and improvements for medical safety and medical care. Community pharmacy is indeed at the heart of every community. Community pharmacy works at the front line at healthcare in cities, towns and villages right across Scotland. They are involved in dispensing medicines and offering patients advice and practical help with healthcare and wellbeing. It plays an important part in the drive to ensure that health professionals provide the service to meet the treatments that care requires. They are done right across the country. Recently, by way of a kind invitation and also as my result of supporting community pharmacies, I had the opportunity to visit one within my own region, and that was Bannerman's pharmacy in Dumblane. I was able to see at first-hand experience that there is truly excellent service and the variety of well-structured and private contractors that are providing in that facility and what they can do and achieve. Services such as pharmacy first, which was an initiative rolled out in 2017, enabled pharmacists to access treatment. They have been taking on more medical and more clinical roles, and that is vitally important, because the monitoring that they are already doing of asthma and diabetes and other medical conditions is well reviewed, and that is a step forward. The scheme aims to improve patient access to GP appointments and encourage those with certain minor ailments to use the pharmacy as treatment rather than making an appointment to the surgery or, in some cases, people attending an accident. Community pharmacy itself carries out consultations with patients and provides advice and treatment under locally agreed patient group directions. It stipulates which medicines can be prescribed and patients and circumstances can be supported. I am very pleased to say that Fos Valley NHS, which looks at part of my region, was piloted for this excellent service. It also operates a more advanced version of a nationwide service. However, community pharmacists also face challenging times, Deputy Presiding Officer. Unfortunately, there is a shortage of qualified technicians and pharmacists across Scotland, and a new GP contract has enabled services for pharmacists that can be employed within a GP clinic or in a GP directive. There is also the opportunity for region health boards to have that facility. That is to be welcomed, because it does once again spread the load and gives individuals the opportunity to participate. It could be argued that new service could provide a great deal of benefit to the day-to-day running of GP clinics. It also gives GP's time and ensures that they exist and gives them the opportunity for a huge number of new posts to be created. However, that has also come up with some issues, because it is not a finite number of trained individuals that we have. In my opinion and in the opinion of CPS, the issues have arisen due to the new services being implemented without impact on other healthcare professionals being taken into account. There is also the need to be much more consultation. To the end, there will now be a comprehensive workforce survey being undertaken by NHS Education Scotland, which will be published shortly. That will quantify the extent of the rather concerning development. Pharmacists are unable to administer flu vaccines for NHS, despite being highly qualified and able to do so. In the view of CPS, it means that Scotland's hard-working GP services are coming under even greater pressure to battle with the balance going forward. The pharmacists maintain that allowing them to help administer the flu jabs would help significantly in getting closer to the targets levels that have been set for vulnerable populations. We know that the elderly, pregnant women and people with specific conditions require that vaccination. Last year, the number of people suffering through doubled from the previous year. Our vaccines rates in Scotland fall well short of the World Health Organization's targets, and we have never managed to achieve a vaccine rate of more than 61 per cent of the at-risk adults under the age of 65. As I alluded to earlier, when we have 1,257 pharmacists across the Ada, they are open six days a week, so they could do so much more to support and assist us. I really think that we need to look at legislation, because south of the border, 1.7 million through jar vaccines were given out between September and January last year. In conclusion, communities, pharmacies and Scotland provide a truly excellent range of patient care within privately owned and businesses run. I commend and congratulate for all the work that they are doing. They also offer so much more, and they could offer so much more to our communities if they were given the opportunity of cost savings for the NHS. That is what we all want to see. We want to see the NHS providing the services, but we also want to do it in collaboration with other individuals in supporting. If they do not have their hands tied, they might be able to do so much more to support us going forward. I wish that CPS continues its success, and I look forward to seeing them go from strength to strength, because that is exactly what we should be seeing in our communities. I congratulate Alexander Stewart on securing this important debate, which I am delighted to speak in on the importance of Scottish community pharmacies. I welcome the opportunity to praise the work that pharmacists around Scotland do to support not only those who live and work in their local areas, but also GPs and other healthcare providers—indeed, Scotland's hard-working community pharmacists, who are independent contractors and who supply pharmacutical services to NHS Scotland—play a vital role in helping to alleviate pressures on local doctors' practices and in supporting members of the community to access advice and guidance on health problems and medications before a doctor's appointment is necessary. The Scottish Government has a vision of providing more care closer to people's homes. With 1,257 pharmacies all over Scotland, community pharmacies are the most accessible primary care provider and play a vital role in helping the Government to meet that ambition, particularly through innovative programmes such as the minor ailments service, which is an NHS service that allows people to be assessed by a pharmacist and, given advice treatment or an onward referral, is appropriate. The service, which is presently available to children, students aged under 19 and people aged 65 plus, has been very well received. NHS Dumfries and Galloway in my south of Scotland area serves a population of over 148,000, but within a large geographical area of over 2,400 square miles. Dumfries and Galloway stretches from Langham in the east to Dremor in the west and from Kirkconel in Cersfair in the north down to Sandy Hills on the Solway coast and Gretna at the border. The health board employs 4,500 staff, excluding GPs and dentists, and with such a large area being serviced by one main hospital, the pressure on local GP surgeries is high, and the need to alleviate the strain is a role that pharmacists play an integral part. Community Pharmacy Scotland, the recognised body that represents Scotland's community pharmacists, has published research highlighting the success of the minor ailment service and showing that 60 per cent of those who use the service said that it saved them from making an appointment to see the GP. CPS is also working with the Scottish Government on an extension of the minor ailment service that she aims to launch in April 2020, and that expanded service will be free to all people registered with the Scottish GP. The existing Pharmacy First programme will be merged with the minor ailment service to help to increase the breadth of conditions that pharmacists can prescribe for in line with the recommendations that are set out by CPS. Presently, the Pharmacy First programme allows pharmacists to prescribe for uncomplicated urinary tract infections and, in Patago, localised skin infections, conjunctivitis, thrush and antibiotics in a rescue pack for patients with COPD. On top of the minor ailment scheme, the present Pharmacy First programme, Community Pharmacy's play a role in helping members of the communities to battle, to abilitating addictions and substance abuse problems. The Boots Pharmacy in Dumfries in my south Scotland region, for example, offers nicotine replacement therapy and supervised methadone supply in the pharmacy, also offers emergency contraception. NHS Dumfries in Galloway stretches a long way through a large geographical area. I just wanted to pay particular tribute to one scheme that has pioneered an initiative to train pharmacy staff across the region that was recognised in the Scottish Pharmacy Awards last year. The scheme was launched and rigged into the structure three years ago with finance from the health and social care integrated fund. At the time, the local prescribing adviser, Amy Robinson, who originated the idea, said that it was well known that we have a need to recruit people to work within the primary care and pharmacy team. As a result, she joined forces with Whithorn Pharmacy, which is an independent community pharmacy, and pharmacist Fiona McElroy. Together, she worked to ensure that participants could train for 15 hours a week in a community pharmacy to meet the necessary regulations, with the remaining time spent with the team in general practice. Initially, she received funding to train one pharmacy technician, Ailee Spell, who has now qualified. That will be built upon to deliver more trainees with more qualifications. That was very much deserving of its award and shows the innovation in this particular area and the vital work that community pharmacists do. I thank my colleague Alexander Stewart for bringing this important debate on community pharmacies to the chamber today. He is rapidly getting a reputation for the MSP for members' debates within our group. However, I would like to pay tribute to all those working across community pharmacies in Scotland for the vital work that they do in assisting and advising patients on health needs. It is important to acknowledge Scotland's pharmaceutical sector and industry, which is very important to our own economy. Scottish Conservatives launched our pharmacy plan last summer to look towards enhancing the capabilities of community pharmacy in Scotland. Community pharmacists across Scotland already play a vital role in supporting local patients, but we believe that they can do more in the future and we want to empower them to achieve that. By expanding the services offered by pharmacists, pressures can be taken away and removed from general practice. In my own Lothian region and in other regions across Scotland, as we have already heard, we have seen a growing demand on our GPs and other primary care services. Many GP practices are already operating closed or restricted lists, and people are facing waiting times of some weeks for routine appointments in many cases to see their doctor. Demand on A&E services continues to grow with people not being able to access information without our services being reduced. Pharmacists are well placed, I believe, to help to reduce the ever-increasing demands that we are seeing on primary care. As has already been mentioned, there are 1,257 pharmacies across Scotland making community pharmacists the most accessible primary care provider in the country, with a higher concentration of pharmacies in deprived and higher populated areas. Pharmacists are highly trained healthcare professionals, and maximising their knowledge and expertise will, I believe, increase the capacity to deliver more effective primary care to all our communities. Marie Todd, who was here at the beginning of the debate, often highlighted before she became a minister and had the ability to speak out on the health and sport committee, just where she felt community pharmacy could go in the future. That is important, and I hope that that voice is heard in Government as well. Scottish Conservatives want to see community pharmacies become health hubs, which will provide a wide range of services to people in our community. As such, we believe that community pharmacists should have access to appropriate patient records, and this is something that I know that the Scottish Government is working on and the health and sport committee has been updated on. In addition, we want to see all community pharmacists having the opportunity to become trained prescribers to allow more common ailments to be treated in an actual pharmacy setting. Our community pharmacies have the potential to assist more patients in more ways, such as taking a lead in travel health services, such as at the Barnton pharmacy here in Edinburgh, in my own region, which has an in-built travel clinic, which is a one-stop shop now for travel-related healthcare needs. Pharmacies could also play a much greater role, as has been mentioned by my colleague Alexander Stewart, in flu prevention and flu vaccination, providing more community-based opportunities for pharmacists to administer flu vaccinations, which would also take pressures off GPs and significantly improve rates of people in the community being vaccinated. Taking someone's blood pressure is a service that some pharmacies already provide, but expanding the service and improving the knowledge and availability of those services could make a real difference to heart health here in Scotland. Our pharmacists and our pharmacies have a huge expertise and untapped expertise. The knowledge that they bring is critically important to our wider Scottish NHS. By giving them the ability to assist more patients in more ways, we can both improve patient care and help to alleviate the ever-growing pressures on our overstretched general practice services across Scotland. I believe that it is time to realise the untapped and unutilised potential of community pharmacies in Scotland. I hope that, on a cross-party basis, that is what the Scottish Government will take forward. Thank you. Thank you very much. I now call on David Stewart, to be a follower of Alison Johnston. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I also congratulate Alison Stewart for securing this important debate this afternoon. I felt that his speech was comprehensive and well researched. As we have heard, community pharmacies are a vital cog to the NHS in Scotland, increasingly acting as the first point of access to the NHS for many patients, with ailments being in small, long-term, short-term, one-off and chronic. I particularly flag up two issues that are not as well known as they should be. The one-two-three before you see a GP service, and, as we have heard from Joan McAlpine, the minor ailment scheme. I think that there are excellent resources. Pharmacists are best known for dispensing medicines and offering patient advice. However, they are now taking on more clinical roles such as management and monitoring of long-term conditions, such as asthma and diabetes, as well as conducting medicines reviews. They also help people to give up smoking, provide drug misuse services and advise on sexual health matters. I would like to take a moment, as others have done, to add my thanks and gratitude to the community pharmacies for all their tireless hard work. I have had recent visits as well. I went to see Lohardo Pharmacy in Inverness just a couple of Fridays ago, and a couple of months ago, I went to KG McDonald's excellent Cromwell Street pharmacy in Stornoway. It was a beautiful day, Presiding Officer. From the excellent briefings that I received from Community Pharmacies Scotland, I learned that community pharmacies are the most accessible primary care providers. We have heard already from the Conservative front bench that there are 1,257 pharmacies all over Scotland, and with a higher concentration of pharmacies in disadvantaged and highly populated areas. As with all areas of NHS, staffings in this shoot at the moment and recruitment and retention of pharmacists is no different. Another pressure that pharmacists are currently facing is the lack of sharing of patient records. Not only do they not have access to patient records from GPs, but any records held by pharmacists are not shared with other pharmacists or GPs. Where is the joined-up thinking? Maybe the minister in his wind-up could concentrate on this. Working in such a siloed manner could put patients at risk or prevent pharmacists from being able to make informed decisions. In one of my own health boards, NHS Highland, they have been developing innovative pharmacy services to develop high-quality pharmaceutical care in more rural settings. From reviewing patient medicines and care homes by TeleHealthLink to providing medication reviews in dependency practices, the pharmacists play a vital role with the NHS Highland team. Making the availability of medical services more accessible to leviate pressure from hard-pressed GPs and the A&E offering advice and medication are things that our community pharmacists can help, only if we give them the support that they need. If I could finish, Presiding Officer, unusually within time, could I quote for the second day in a row the founder of the NHS, Nibevan, who said that no society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means? I don't know if you're looking for brownie points for that, Mr Stewart. We'll think about it. I call Alison Johnstone to be followed by Sandra White. Ms White will be the last speaker in the open debate. Ms Johnstone, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I welcome this debate on community pharmacy and thank Alexander Stewart for bringing it to Parliament. Pharmacists play a vital role in delivering healthcare to Scotland's people, and I'd like to express my appreciation for the work that they do. I'd also like to thank the organisations that provided a briefing for today, and all those in the Carrick Now pharmacy, whom I spent an informative afternoon with, a busy staff team who helped me to learn more about the important work that they do. It's no surprise, as the Royal Pharmaceutical Society notes in its briefing, that community pharmacy is increasingly becoming the first access point in the NHS for many patients. Community pharmacists are taking on more clinical roles in offering services such as smoking cessation, drug misuse services, sexual health advice and the minor ailment service, which Community Pharmacy Scotland says saved 60 per cent of those treated from seeing their GP. As members are aware, I recently led a debate on GP recruitment and retention, during which I and my colleague Mark Ruskell spoke about the importance of developing the multidisciplinary team that has the potential to lessen GP's unsustainable workloads. I welcome the expansion of the community pharmacist role, but we must ensure that a significant workforce is in place. Community Pharmacy Scotland says that the new GP contract has resulted in hundreds of pharmacists being recruited to work in GP surgeries, but that this has created recruitment and retention challenges in their profession, as there hasn't been a corresponding increase in the pharmacy workforce. The Royal Pharmaceutical Society is asking for direct investment in education and training to ensure that there are enough qualified pharmacists and effective workforce planning to ensure the long-term sustainability of the profession. The Scottish Government must heed those calls. It's essential that we don't overburden other health professionals in an effort to help assist Scotland's struggling general practice. Community Pharmacy Scotland has called for improved communication between healthcare providers. Pharmacists can't currently access patient care records, which hinders their ability to prescribe medication and places extra pressure on GP's who are often asked to verify a patient's history. Information sharing across the health service must be urgently improved if the multidisciplinary team is to operate effectively. There is room for more collaborative work in between professions, for example in the promotion of pharmacists as clinical experts in medicine and prescribing. In December 2017, the RCGP ran its three before GP campaign to which David Stewart referred, and it referred to the three steps that patients should consider before booking an appointment with their GP, one of which was seeking advice from a pharmacist. I urge the Scottish Government to consider running or supporting similar campaigns in future. It may be the case that patients simply wouldn't think to seek medical advice from their pharmacists, so that culture change is required. It's something that we can help to facilitate. Pharmacists are also crucial to the integration of health and social care. In a recent report, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society highlighted the need for more pharmaceutical care in care homes. It recommended that care homes have dedicated time from pharmacists and their teams embedded in their service. Scotland's people are living longer, and as a consequence, we have an increasing number of frail elderly patients with complex conditions in care homes. Community pharmacists are well placed to support care homes administering medical care to their residents. It is essential that there is more collaboration between pharmaceutical and care services in future. The role of the community pharmacist is expanding, and although that will be of prodigious benefit to our health service and patient care, it is vital that we ensure that a sufficient workforce and appropriate funding is in place to facilitate that development. I congratulate Alexander Stewart for securing the debate. Community pharmacy is something that I have supported throughout my term as an MSP. I have got the 20-year badge on, so that is over 20 years. I have seen some fantastic changes, and I want to thank all of them who work in the pharmacies, not just my constituents, but throughout Scotland, who have visited numerous pharmacies there. I think that the work that they do is absolutely fantastic. I agree with everything that everyone has said—all of the speakers, minor ailments, etc. I really want to reiterate what has come up from Dave Stewart, Alison Johnstone in particular, about the access to patient records. I know that it is really difficult to do that, particularly when you get GDPR, which is another aspect of it. However, it would be helpful in some form of joined-up thinking in that, particularly if it is just an emergency care summary in that aspect. However, I want to go on to another part of community pharmacy, which is not necessarily the medical part of it, but when you go into community pharmacy, it is a real community hub. People come from all age groups, and community pharmacies create the bubble packs, which then go to home delivery. The last community pharmacy that I visited in Argyll Street just a couple of weeks ago, in my constituency, was talking about having to put a cap on the bubble packs because of the costs involved. That is something else that we need to look at, plus the fact that, if we are doing the bubble packs, which is a great benefit for people who are elderly or some other form of infirmity, it means that we have to employ someone else as well. It creates employment, but there is a cap going on there as well. However, while speaking to the people in the community pharmacy, as I said, they are very involved in the local community. They get to a situation where, if people do not turn up to pick up their prescription or if they go to deliver the prescription and they cannot get into the house, they know that there is something wrong. It is not just the medical side of it as well. It is looking after the elder of the community, people who are infirm too, and they have such lots of community knowledge about the people who come in and out of their community pharmacy. I think that they do an absolutely fantastic job. In the last couple of minutes that I have left, I wanted to mention the fact that I think that Alison Johnstone mentioned about the care homes. It was only two weeks ago that I hosted an event about pharmacies into care homes. I also raised it as I am on the health committee. I also raised it in the health committee. Thankfully, we are doing inquiry into care homes, and we are looking at this particular document that has been produced by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. It is now being lodged with the health committee, and we will be looking at it also. It is not just, as I said, all about medicine. It is about caring for a community and being able to access people's records, hopefully, in the community, from doctors, but it is much, much more than that. Thank you very much for all the interesting contributions. I call on Jo FitzPatrick to close with the Government Minister, please. I will start by adding my congratulations to Alexander Stewart for securing this debate and for the contributions across the chamber. I welcome the motion not just because community pharmacy Scotland is an important stakeholder in our healthcare system, but the pivotal contribution that its members make to the multidisciplinary team at the heart of primary care, which a number of members have mentioned. With more than 1,250 members, community pharmacy Scotland represents a diverse range of community pharmacies across Scotland, from small independent-owned pharmacies to large retail chains. I saw first-hand the vital role a community pharmacy plays on a visit to Avie More during the peak winter period earlier this year. The pharmacist, Gary Buchanan, and his team provided a range of NHS pharmaceutical care and advice services, not only to the resident population, but of course, in an all-year-round tourist destination, the pharmacy team provides pharmacare and advice to UK and international visitors to the area, too. I am very grateful for the minister's visit to my region, and I hope that he enjoyed the visit to the pharmacist there. Did the pharmacist raise the real problem of data and the issue that many members have raised? Why can't we have patient data going to pharmacists? As I am sure that the member would not be surprised, of course, he did raise that as an issue in terms of a barrier and being able to do more that he would like to do, but it was impressive speaking to the team there about the range of things that they already do, and that was absolutely certainly an issue that they raised. I will cover it later, but I will cover it just now, given that the member has. A number of members raised the point of access to records. As Miles Briggs mentioned, work is progressing on access to the appropriate information from patient records that is needed to support community pharmacists in caring for their patient population. Government is working with the Scottish General Practitioners Committee on the BMA to put in place a framework that would allow safe access and sharing of electronic health information. That is an important point, and it is one that people are hearing across Scotland, given that it was also raised by Alison Johnstone, Sandra White, Miles Briggs and Mr Stewart. I think that that is an important point. Our network of community pharmacies across Scotland plays a vital role in providing advice to the local communities about medicine and self-limiting illnesses through the acute medication service community pharmacists dispens more than 100 million prescriptions items annually, with 98 per cent of prescription messages electronically transferred between GPs, practices and community pharmacists. That is all done alongside delivering key person centre services such as supporting more than 750,000 people with stable long-term conditions through chronic medical services as part of the public health services for smoking cessation, which John McAlpine raised, and emergency contraception, providing advice and interventions. Crucially, for many people, community pharmacy is the first port of call for advice and treatment for common minor conditions through the minor ailments and pharmacy first services, highlighted by John McAlpine, Alexander Stewart, David Stewart and Alison Johnstone. All those services help to produce the burden on our busy general practice and open up access to primary care, a point that a number of members have raised. The chief pharmaceuticals officer strategy, achieving excellence in pharmaceutical care, underlines the Government's recognition of the important role that community pharmacy already plays in the provision of NHS pharmaceutical care, providing highly accessible services for people in and out of ours. We want more people to use their community pharmacy not only for treatment of self-limiting illnesses and medicine-related matters, but also for on-going self-management support for people with long-term conditions. Achieving excellence also makes a commitment to support engagement between GP practices and community pharmacies, and that data-sharing is probably important as part of that. There is an important role for GP practice-based pharmacists to work closely with community pharmacists to ensure seamless care and reduce potential medication-related problems and errors. I thank the minister for taking this intervention. Alison Johnstone touched on this point in her speech about workforce planning, and the fact that the GP contract will see pharmacists going into a GP setting. What future proofing are we having to make sure that this is not Robin Peter to pay Paul, and that we have a proper pharmacy strategy in the workforce plan? The Scottish Government provides specific funding of £416,000 to support community pharmacists to understand some of that work. However, in recognition of the need for us to have robust baseline data on the number of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians working across the network, last year, in partnership with CPS and NHS Education Scotland, the first national community pharmacy workforce study to gain a better understanding of the numbers and skills mix across. I hope that that will ensure that we have the right set of skills going forward. I am trying to pick up on a number of the points that were raised. The cabinet secretary and I are keen to see the positive partnership that we have with CPS continue and will continue to work closely in collaboration towards delivering our programme for government commitments. The programme for government includes two specific commitments relating to community pharmacy, a redesign of the minor ailment and common condition service raised by others earlier, and a refresh of the chronic medication services. Work has already started on the chronic medication services and will strengthen and refresh the service and relaunch that this year as the medicines care and review service, improving how pharmacies provide personalised care for people with long-term conditions on long-term medication. Preparatory work is already under way to introduce a redesigned minor ailment and common condition service available from April 2020 to all patients registered with a GP in Scotland. That will bring together the existing minor ailments and pharmacy first services that members have raised, gradually extending the range of conditions that can be treated by community pharmacists, including some common conditions that would normally require GP prescription further reducing the burden on our GP practices. Alexander Stewart mentioned vaccination. I want to say a little bit about our vaccination transformation programme so that there is no doubt that community pharmacy will contribute to the delivery of the vaccination programme. The programme supports NHS boards and health and social care partnerships to design solutions for delivering vaccinations in a way that best suits their needs. NHS boards are to be encouraged to consider the potential of different parts of their multidisciplinary team to ensure that patients receive the right care at the right place at the right time. That is why vaccination solutions must not only focus on community pharmacies. Ensuring that our pharmacy teams are delivering high-quality, core pharmaceutical care services is the focus of our priorities and we continue to discuss those with community pharmacy Scotland. Alison Johnstone and Sandra White both mentioned care homes. Alison Johnstone particularly mentioned the recent contribution from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society on support that community pharmacists provide to patients in care homes. Our achieving excellence in pharmaceutical care strategy contains the commitment to improve the pharmaceutical care of residents in care homes, as well as people who are cared for in their own homes. Work has to continue to work with the integrated joint boards to identify how that approach will go forward, but it is an important point. I recognise and welcome the contribution of community pharmacies Scotland and its members to pharmacy services in Scotland and the wider healthcare system. I am pleased to support the motion today.