Abstract
Practising community pharmacists are concerned at the low priority being given to pharmacy in the government's vision of a 21st century health service. Recent communications to the pharmaceutical press¹ refer to 'neglect' of pharmacy, 'ignorance' of its important role in healthcare, and 'failure to reward' pharmacists for the work they do.

The authors present an analysis of the factors underlying this distress. A 'structuralist functionalist' framework is used to analyse the political role played by community pharmacists and a content analysis of press and political party statements illustrates the findings. Key results are listed below.

Pharmacist representatives' relationship with government holds principally a lobbying function; its main aim is to secure the best deal to protect pharmacists' current functional role and preserve their existence. This places them at odds with a government committed to change and 'modernisation'.

Pharmacists exhibit few signs of affiliation to the purposes of government policy, particularly in the fields of inequality and social justice; this contrasts significantly with the active roles played by the 'caring' medical, social care and nursing professional bodies who have a high level of ideological engagement with these political aspirations.

The socially isolated position of pharmacists often working alone contrasts to the institutional or collective professional working environment of other healthcare professionals; this is a major structural factor in the low level of political awareness of pharmacists, and also acts as an obstacle to participation in political activity.

The functional role of the retail business setting tends to attract professionals who have an individualised rather than collective vision of self-advancement; these characteristics are associated with depoliticised belief systems and a scepticism of politics leading to little personal engagement with the political process. Consequently few pharmacists belong to political parties, in contrast to other health professions such as health administration, nursing, social work and health promotion.

The professional training for community pharmacists involves little exposure to the social and political sciences; in common with may scientists and engineers, the practice of their profession is often seen as divorced entirely from a social and political context and indeed this is often held as a fundamental tenet of the scientific belief system.

In conclusion, the authors see the present marginalisation of pharmacy as a symptom of a deeper and more fundamentally embedded feature. It is not that pharmacy has little resonance with new Labour - it would simply prefer all politicians just left them alone to get on with the job. This obviously makes pharmacy vulnerable at a time of dynamic change but is also an explanation of the low priority that governments of all colours have given to it over the years.

References

1. Open letter to the Secretary of State, PJ September 4, 1999, p361 and subsequent correspondence