Many community pharmacists are struggling to deliver patient services to the quality they would like, with some facing difficulties on an almost daily basis, a C+D Senate survey has suggested.

The poll of 48 readers, carried out ahead of the C+D Senate on quality in pharmacy services on Friday July 6, found more than two thirds had at some point delivered a service to a lower quality than they would have liked, with more than 40 per cent citing lack of time as a factor.

Pharmacists said they believed community pharmacy delivered services to an "OK" standard across the board, but they agreed that in some cases quality was not good enough.

The poll came ahead of the C+D Senate on quality, to be held this Friday, July 6	More on the C+D Senate on quality Zoe Smeaton: Quality – the buzzword coming to a       town near you Q&A with PSNC chief executive Sue Sharpe Senate homepage
	C+D Senators said the survey was representative of their experiences with community pharmacists. "I think frontline pharmacists and their teams are under quite a lot of pressure," said Nick Hunter, chief executive at Doncaster, Rotherham and Nottinghamshire LPCs. "They are being squeezed from both ends and that makes a very difficult environment to build on quality."

Health Diagnostics managing director Julie Evason agreed time was "often cited as a factor" by pharmacies struggling to deliver services. Senators advised pharmacists to make the most of their teams to help with service delivery.

"I think pharmacists need to look at the skill mix in their team and make sure they're using that as best they can," Mr Hunter said. "The pharmacies that appear to run the most smoothly are the ones that have a well-informed team and the team runs the pharmacy, not the pharmacist."

The C+D Senate will be meeting on Friday July 6 to discuss quality in pharmacy services and how it can be improved – post your comments and questions for Senators below this story then go to chemistanddruggist.co.uk/senate to follow the debate live from 12 noon.