Cutting through pharmacy's challenges
The GP Senate
The C+D Senate brought GPs and pharmacists together on March 30 to discuss the working relationship between the two sectors, covering everything from doctors threatening to open 100-hour pharmacies to their commissioning duties in the new NHS. Catch up on C+D's live coverage of the debate, plus all the news from the Senate and a picture gallery from the day, below
 From mumbo jumbo retail offerings to widespread confusion over roles, some tensions between GPs and pharmacists never seem to die down. Emma Weinbren looks at how C+D Senators proposed breaking down the barriers that are preventing the two professions from building fruitful partnerships |
 Patients should be at the core of what GPs and pharmacists do, but is this the case in practice? Emma Weinbren reports from the latest C+D Senate debate |
 The doctors in power aren’t exactly sending us warm and fuzzy messages, writes news editor Zoe Smeaton ahead of the C+D Senate on March 30 |
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| Sue Moore, Alphega Pharmacy UK general manager | Jason Perfitt, Pfizer UK head of customer & channel marketing | |
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| Hamed Khan, GP partner, Oxted Health Centre and board member, RCGP South London Faculty | Nikita Kanani, GP and commissioning trainer at the Royal College of General Practitioners | |
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Ash Pandya, Essex LPC chief executive |
Graham Phillips, Manor Pharmacy (Wheathampstead) contractor | |
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| Martyn Lobley, GP | Michael Cann, Actavis director of generics | |
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Ian Brown, Boots UK Senior Healthcare Development Manager (NHS relatons) |
Alex Davies-Jones, Day Lewis pharmacist | |
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| Amy Banks, GP |
Senate News
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Senate C+D Senators have warned that pharmacy and GP funding systems are pitting the professions against each other and damaging working relationship |
 Senate C+D Senators have hit out at GPs who are opening 100-hour pharmacies, with one Senator branding certain doctors' ethics as an "utter national disgrace", at the C+D Senate between pharmacists and GPs last month. |
 Senate C+D Senators have delivered a mixed verdict on the NHS reforms, as some argued that they will not remove the "postcode lottery" for pharmacy services, while others maintained the changes would be an "enormous opportunity" for the sector. |
 Business Pharmacists would like to see the sector's role split evenly between dispensing volume and service delivery, a C+D Senate Survey has suggested. |
Ask a Senator
 C+D senate We put your questions to the experts. This week, the topic was business in a tough economic climate. |
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C+D senate We put your questions to the experts. This week, the topic was pharmacy and the public health agenda |