The decommissioning of care home pharmacy services in Manchester, Buckinghamshire and Swindon PCTs has been blamed on low engagement by pharmacies.

The decisions were uncovered in a C+D investigation into service decommissioning using Freedom of Information requests that revealed swingeing cuts across the country.

Measuring care home service engagement by pharmacists had been hard, because pharmacies outside the area might be providing services to care homes within it, said Manchester LPC secretary Pauline Thickett. "No contractor has complained about [the service cut] to us and when you see the amount that has been done, there is not much. Nobody has claimed anything," she said.

"We don't know which pharmacies are servicing care homes as pharmacies take them on as extra business," Ms Thickett explained.

The cuts come ahead of changes in the way care home services may be commissioned, said Department of Health community pharmacy tsar Jonathan Mason.

"I think that is why we have seen a lot of decommissioning, [it is] as we have been looking at what should be commissioned to ensure safe medicines' use," he explained.

"It has to be done at a local level and different areas have different needs so it will be down to local decision making," Mr Mason said. The Care Quality Commission wants to ensure that people in care homes have the same access to NHS services as everyone else, Mr Mason explained.

See the full results of the C+D investigation here.