Poor relationships between pharmacists and GPs are hindering the care of dementia patients, the chair of the Alzheimer's Society has said.

The "barriers" between the healthcare professions was preventing them from uniting to create local solutions that focused on these patients, Dame Gill Morgan told C+D in an exclusive interview.

Dame Gill emphasised the need for pharmacy to engage with dementia patients in their areas as well as helping to make communities "more tolerant" of the condition, she said at the Conservative party conference on September 30. This could involve pharmacists engaging with the Dementia Friends initiative or with areas participating in the Alzheimer's Society's Dementia-Friendly Communities programme, she suggested.

Pharmacists had a "big role to play" and some were already showing "really dynamic engagement" with Alzheimer's patients, said Dame Gill.

"The problem about pharmacy for me is that we say we're going to engage with people but we do it top-down; we [need] local people designing local [care] pathways. This is only going to work if there is respect between GPs and pharmacists. Then you get dynamic things happening," she said. 

Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) also had a role in engaging with pharmacists and making sure they were part of the dementia "care package", she added.

Dame Gill spoke to C+D in the same week that NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens announced a £5 million boost to GP funding to increase identification of patients with dementia.

Today (October 13), NHS England announced its Dementia Ambassadors scheme, which involves placing seven clinical advisors around England and Scotland to give one-to-one support to CCGs and health committees to help boost their knowledge of dementia.

There was currently an "unacceptable variation" in dementia services across the country, said NHS England, which launched the scheme to "spread the word" about the need to diagnose the condition, NHS England said.

Dr Sunil Gupta, a GP in Essex and NHS England's clinical advisor for dementia for the Midlands and the east of England, said "timely diagnosis" of the condition would help patients to receive the best treatment and make decisions about their future. "It can also help research looking for better treatments for dementia as well as ensure there are sufficient services for patients in an area," he added.

	How do you engage with dementia patients in your local area?