Jay Mistry wrote to Bracknell MP Dr Phillip Lee for help and support in his fight against controversial proposals

Jay Mistry is one of hundreds of worried pharmacy owners to petition their MP over Government proposals to shut up to 3,000 independent pharmacies and move them into doctors' surgeries.

Mr Mistry, a pharmacist for 21 years, expected Dr Phillip Lee, MP for Bracknell and also a trained GP, to support the campaign against the proposals, having already been forced into making redundancies after seeing his turnover halve when a nearby surgery opened its own pharmacy three years ago.

Instead he was left stunned when MP Dr Lee snubbed his cry for help, saying he supported the Department for Health's controversial proposals to axe thousands of pharmacies.

Campaigners say the move will put increased pressure on GPs and hospitals and reduce patient access to medicine and advice.

                    "We are the central hub for the community..." 

Mr Mistry, the owner of Jats Pharmacy in Finchampstead, said of his MP: "He is biased towards GPs because he is a GP. I expected support from him. He's supposed to support the local community, he's supposed to represent us. We voted him in.

"He may be a GP, but if I was an MP I would look after my community. As a pharmacist I'm here to serve the community.

"He is a Conservative, and the Conservatives tend to support enterprising businesses. What they are doing is closing down the businesses, which is contrary to their normal requirements.

"We are the central hub for the community. With this plan, people will get sent to a surgery which may be miles from home and doesn't know what the local demographic is."

                                   "Totally ill-thought out..."

In his reply to Mr Mistry, Dr Lee said the plans would save hundreds of millions of pounds and would "help transform how pharmacists and community pharmacies will operate in the NHS".

However Mr Mistry said the proposals were "totally ill-thought out" and said they could end up being challenged in court due to a lack of consultation with pharmacy owners.

He said: "They are aiming to close underperforming pharmacies, but I don't know how they are going to make a judgement on that - you might have a village pharmacy that serves only 100 people, because that's their demographic.

"There's been no consultation whatsoever. It's been totally ill-thought out. They have approached it poorly.

"Starting up a pharmacy in a surgery is more expensive. 

"The only beneficiary is the doctor or the owner of the pharmacy. It goes into the doctor's pockets. You can't judge what the doctors are doing because they can be biased and prescribe what they want to prescribe."

Jay Mistry says he fears for the future if the plans to close pharmacies goes ahead

Mr Mistry said the nearby Finchampstead Surgery opened up a rival surgery around three years ago: "It reduced my turnover by 50 per cent. I have had to make two or three people redundant, because I can't afford to keep them."

He added: "God knows what's going to happen 10 years in the future when they have closed 3,000 pharmacies."

In his letter to Mr Mistry, Dr Lee said: "I understand your concern about this issue and the importance of local pharmacies for advice and as a community resource.

"As a practicing GP myself, I personally believe GP surgeries should dispense prescription medication themselves. This would save hundreds of millions of pounds that we currently spend on subsidising pharmacies.

"There is an oversupply of pharmacists, who are highly clinically trained, who could be stepping in to treat patients at the surgery and reduce waiting times.

"I have worked at practices that dispense medication themselves, I believe it to be far more effective and efficient."

                        "There is an oversupply of pharmacists..."

A petition opposing the plans, which was set up by the National Pharmacy Association, has been signed by 270,000 people so far.

Recent research carried out by the NPA suggested that two in five people would go their GP if they had no access to an independent surgery.

The figures compiled by the NPA also said that more than a third of people have received advice on how to get best use of their medicines in the past six months.

Ian Strachan, chairman of the NPA, said the survey results showed that the government proposals would pile more pressure onto overworked GPs.

He said: "The research confirms how much people really value the face-to-face advice they get at local pharmacies.

"It also shows that if you reduce people's access to such advice, that simply puts extra pressure on GPs and hospitals, which are already stretched." 

A separate campaign website, www.supportyourlocalpharmacy.org, has also been set up and nearby Finchampstead pharmacy are urging customers to sign this petition against the plans. 

Joanna Murray of the Finchampstead pharmacy said: "Think about the services currently available at your local pharmacy - Medicines Use Reviews, advice on new medicines, flu vaccinations, free prescription delivery and the wide range of healthy lifestyle advice that pharmacy teams can give to you and your family – all incredibly valuable and accessible services which, without them, could lead to potentially life threatening outcomes for some.

"We are urging our customers to sign the petition against these funding cuts."