How do you beat the 8am scramble to see a doctor? By investing in community pharmacy! But how do you get that message across to Labour politicians?
That was the challenge we were faced with at the Labour party conference, in Liverpool, last week.
In the end, we met the challenge well, as we engaged with dozens of Labour politicians throughout the week - including MPs, ministers, mayors and MSPs.
These included Pharmacy Minister Stephen Kinnock MP, Health whip Taiwo Owatmemi MP, Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, Afzal Khan MP, Vicky Foxcroft MP, and many, many others. We also engaged with the special advisers to Wes Streeting.
Many of the politicians we met with, we engaged through 1-2-1 meetings.
Many others, we engaged with by meeting with them when they came to visit our conference stand - which had the slogan: Roll up! How to beat the 8am scramble to see doc!
The purpose of the stand, and the flyers we were handing out, was to show that by investing in community pharmacy we can take pressure off general practice and hospitals.
This point was reinforced through our mini manifesto: Our Mission to fix community pharmacy and help fix our NHS.
Across the four days we were in Liverpool, we were met with a warm reception, with Labour politicians saying repeatedly that the message had got through, to all the key players, that there was a crisis in community pharmacy and something had to be done about it.
Many cited the coverage we have generated, over recent months, as part of the #SaveOurPharmacies campaign - and said this has been a turning point in the understanding that politicians now have.
While at the conference, we also made the case that the constant medicines shortages we are currently experiencing are a function, in part, of the underfunding of community pharmacy.
And I was one of the keynote speakers at the Labour fringe event, run by the Epilepsy Society, on medicines supply.
In my talk, I called on the government to appoint a Medicines Supply Tsar, and to set up a Medicines Supply Working Group, comprising representatives from all the key organisations, including the NPA - National Pharmacy Association.
This was a party conference, where we engaged with dozens of politicians.
Where we got our key messages across.
Where we really made our mark.
nick kaye Olivier Picard Aisling O'Brien Sukhi Basra Sanjay Ganvir Ashley Cohen Baldev Bange Sanjeev Panesar Andrew Lane Salim Jetha Bernadette Brown9 Sehar Shahid