The sector is divided by the Royal Society of General Practitioners' (RCGPs) proposals to employ an "army" of pharmacists in GP practices across England.

Placing pharmacists in GP practices would slash waiting times and improve patient care, the RCGP said when it announced its joint initiative with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) last week (March 17). Employing these pharmacists “as soon as possible” would support patients with long-term conditions and reduce medicines waste, the RCGP said.

But Mike Hewitson, owner of Beaminster Pharmacy in Dorset, told C+D he thought the proposals were a “threat” to the commissioning of national and local services through community pharmacy.
 

“It is very naive to think it won’t be viewed as a route to commissioning,” said Mr Hewitson, who is also chairman of Pharmacy Voice’s professional practice group. “What we don’t need are people in practices thinking they’re in charge of community pharmacy.”

The RCGP said its proposals were a solution to the oversupply of community pharmacists, but Mr Hewitson stressed that oversupply “was not a universal problem” and the plans could make pharmacists feel there was "no future" in the community sector. “Where I work we are struggling to recruit pharmacists,” he added.

Amish Patel, manager of Hodgson Pharmacy in Kent, shared the concern that community pharmacy services would be moved to GP practices, which would be problematic as “future funding is going to come from services”.

Mr Patel predicted that the initiative would take time to implement and called for commissioners to focus on using community pharmacy for an "immediate effect". “Why look at a harder solution when the answer is right in front of you?” Mr Patel told C+D.
 

‘Huge improvement’ in care

Pharmacy organisations were more supportive of the proposals. Pharmacy Voice chief executive Rob Darracott said the plans could have a “huge improvement” on patient care and ensure they saw “the right person at the right time”.

“Putting pharmacists into GP surgeries can bring specialist skills around medicines into play, but we need to ensure that this resource is closely linked to community pharmacists and their teams,” Mr Darracott added.

Numark marketing director Mandeep Mudhar told C+D that the support group would “welcome roles that allow pharmacists to work in a new area”, as long as the money did not come from community pharmacy.

“It’s great announcing a new initiative but the devil is in the detail. It has got to be new money and there has to be a clear definition of the role of pharmacists and practices,” he stressed.


The RCGP’s announcement built on plans unveiled by NHS England last year for pharmacists to work in expanded GP practices as part of a new model of care. RPS English pharmacy board member Sandra Gidley told C+D last week that  pharmacists would work closely with local community pharmacies and were "by no means a replacement for anything that community pharmacy does”.
 

 

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