Pharmacists must be proactive in changing their roles and businesses and not wait for the impact of NHS reforms and other external factors, Numark's managing director has warned.

John D'Arcy told delegates at the Numark conference in Vietnam on Sunday (April 21) not to be complacent about change because community pharmacy leaders had talked about it for so long yet the pace of change remained slow.

"There is a future for community pharmacy but not as we know it," he said. "We need to think very, very differently."

The national pharmacy contracts, particularly England's, were not conducive to change, Mr D'Arcy claimed. But pharmacists had to shoulder some of the blame for the slow pace of change themselves, he insisted.

Echoing the results of the C+D Salary Survey 2012, he said: "We can blame the Department [of Health] for not giving us money, we can blame the negotiating body for not getting us a good deal, but where is the blame on ourselves for not getting to grips with change?"

If pharmacists did not engage with change, they would be left behind, he added. "That's the thing with change - it just goes round you."

Mr D'Arcy laid down a challenge for LPC representatives to give some "oomph" to this week's annual LPC conference, which he said had become "fairly routine and anodyne" in recent years.

Contractor and NHS Lambeth clinical network lead Ash Soni also used his presentation to the Numark conference to call for LPCs to up their game, reiterating his concern that some were not fit for purpose in the new NHS.

"A number of them still have difficulty understanding... the relationship with local government," Mr Soni told delegates. "Considering [NHS reform] has been going on for two years, they should be in that place by now."