GPs need to use pharmacists "far more" in long-term conditions management, NHS Future Forum chair Steve Field told influential parliamentarians this week.

Speaking at a discussion hosted by the all-party parliamentary group on primary care and public health on Tuesday (April 18), Professor Field said moving the health service in this direction would "provoke a lot of opposition from doctors and specialists" but was the right thing to do. Other attendees agreed that pharmacy was not being used to its maximum potential, suggesting the sector could take on more of GPs' workload.

The parliamentary summit was called to review changes in the NHS since the Wanless Report - a 20-year plan for the future of the NHS - was published in 2002. The report set out a vision for the NHS in which prevention played a greater role and health outcomes were improved. It aimed to improve public engagement in healthcare and encourage people to take more responsibility for their own health.

"GPs are still going to have to make the right referrals at the right time" Howard Stoate, Bexley CCG

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"There was a really big emphasis in the Wanless Report on shifting care from current settings," said Nuffield Trust chief economist Anita Charlesworth, who also led the team working with Sir Wanless on the report. "It was assumed that by now lots of GP activity would switch to pharmacies. Unfortunately we don't see a lot of that." Bexley clinical commissioning group chair and GP Howard Stoate said the NHS reforms presented a real opportunity for transformational change in the healthcare system that could "involve more use of pharmacy, engage the public and be sustainable".

But he warned that patients' experience of the health service would continue to rest heavily on the quality of individual GPs.

"Whatever health service we end up with, in dealing with those with long-term conditions GPs are going to have to make the right referrals at the right time", Dr Stoate said.