To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the prospects for local pharmacies to operate a minor ailments service; whether he expects primary care trusts to promote such a service; and if he will make a statement. (155788)

In “Building on the Best: Choice, Responsiveness and Equity in the NHS”, which was published in December 2003, the Department said that it expected all primary care trusts to consider commissioning pharmacist-led minor ailments services so that patients, who would otherwise have gone to their general practitioner for a medicine for a minor ailment, could get that medicine on the national health service from their community pharmacy.

Primary care trusts assess the health needs their population and commission services to meet those needs, in accordance with local priorities and finite resources.