EXCLUSIVE

The relationship between GPs and pharmacists is worse now than it was 20 years ago, primary care organisation NHS Alliance has said.

Michael Dixon, chair of NHS Alliance and a GP, said increased competition and the use of locums had damaged the relationship between the two professions.

Competition between pharmacists and GPs to deliver NHS health checks had proved "extremely unproductive", Dr Dixon told C+D in an exclusive interview on Monday.

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	Pharmacists and GPs were often locums working in temporary positions, which made it difficult to build relationships when the individuals were "not working together all the time", said Dr Dixon, who is also president of clinical commissioning group membership organisation NHS Clinical Commissioners.

To help repair the worsening relationship, Dr Dixon called for both professions to foster a greater respect for what each had to offer and to "integrate their work" into a joined-up healthcare system.

"To stop the competition, we need mutual incentives and to work within integrated organisations. [Being] pitted against each other is never going to be in the interest of the patients," he said.

Dr Dixon highlighted the need to make the electronic exchange of data between pharmacists and GPs "a priority" as it had been "hopelessly slow" so far.

GPs also struggled to build relationships with hospital staff and there "was not as much contact" between GP practices and secondary care as in the past, he added.

In May, NHS Alliance chief executive Rick Stern said pharmacy had been overlooked in favour of general practice since the NHS reforms. The previous month, 83 per cent of readers in a C+D poll said the NHS reforms had not changed their relationship with local GPs.

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