Community pharmacy representatives are to take the Save Our Pharmacies funding campaign to MPs today in a roundtable discussion.

Sector leaders will highlight the severe challenges pharmacies across England face, and the role they can play in the upcoming Primary Care Recovery Plan, the campaign group announced yesterday.

The meeting comes as a public #SaveOurPharmacies petition reaches over 30,000 signatures in its first week, with the campaign also gaining coverage in national media.

A Save Our Pharmacies window poster (pictured above in Shiv Pharmacy in central London) is now available to download, and is also being distributed with copies of Communications International Group publications Pharmacy Magazine, Training Matters, Independent Community Pharmacist and P3pharmacy.

The campaign group is urging pharmacies to make use of the poster and other resources on the saveourpharmacies.co.uk website, including social media graphics and briefing messages for local MPs.

A spokesperson for the campaign group commented: “Thirty thousand signatures in a week indicates a high level of underlying public support for community pharmacy and it’s a good start to the #SaveOurPharmacies campaign. A petition by itself won’t change the world, but it works as a kind of drumbeat for the campaign.

“Community pharmacies are under more pressure than ever before and this needs to be addressed urgently. This is why the national pharmacy bodies have come together behind the #SaveOurPharmacies campaign. There is huge public support for the sector and now is the time to mobilise that support to clearly demonstrate the value of pharmacies to key influencers and policymakers.

“We hope the new window poster – along with all the resources available at saveourpharmacies.co.uk – will help as many pharmacies as possible to drum up support from their patients We're grateful to the team at CIG for their generosity in helping us to distribute these posters widely across England."