Dr. Howard Stoate: My hon. Friend will know that to maximise the usefulness of all our health service professionals, especially in primary care, it is essential that we make maximum use of the expertise of pharmacists. What plans has he to ensure that pharmacists will soon have read and write access to patient records, so that we can maximise everyone's skills in primary care?

Mr. Lewis: Pharmacies' use of IT for e-prescribing is increasing all the time. My hon. Friend will have to wait a little while, until we publish our pharmacy White Paper, for us to say more about that, but he is right to say that there is enormous potential for pharmacists to deliver better services to patients if they have full access to IT and their access is interoperable with the rest of the health service.