Community pharmacist Sadik Al-Hassan was celebrating a memorable election victory last night as he became the Labour MP for North Somerset.

Al-Hassan (pictured), the superintendent of online pharmacy PillTime, ended Liam Fox’s 32-year stay as the constituency’s MP, pulling in 19,138 votes as Labour took the seat from the Conservatives and returned to power for the first time in 14 years.

In a post on X, Al-Hassan said he was “truly honoured to be elected” and during his victory speech, he insisted the election highlighted there was “no such thing as a safe seat”.

“I have talked to people who work in the NHS who have waited over 89 weeks for an appointment,” he told the BBC’s Local Democracy Reporting Service.

“I have had people who have had two years wait for a dental treatment because they couldn’t get an NHS dentist, they are living in pain for two years and ended up having emergency treatment.

“The reason I got into politics is to help make those kind of situations right. It’s the same as being a pharmacist. All I want to do is help the community and help improve people’s lives.”

He added: “If you go down the high street you will notice there’s less banks, less pharmacies, more food banks.This is a growing problem across the country but North Somerset has been hit particularly hard.”

Al-Hassan said Labour’s proposal of a community pharmacy prescribing service was “innovative” but warned it needed “to be funded in a way that works for pharmacy”.

Meanwhile, another pharmacist, Taiwo Owatemi, was re-elected as Labour’s MP for Coventry North West after winning 19,696 votes, nearly twice as many as her nearest rival Tom Mercer from the Conservatives.

Royal Pharmaceutical Society president Claire Anderson said: “It's fantastic we now have two pharmacists elected to parliament. I would like to warmly congratulate Taiwo Owatemi, former chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Pharmacy, who has retained her seat in Coventry North West, and welcome community pharmacist Sadik Al-Hassan, who is now MP for North Somerset. We look forward to working with both of them.

“The future of our health service has been at the forefront of the election campaign and, amid workforce shortages and medicines supply issues, the new Government must turn its attention to enhancing patient care in a health service under continued pressure.”