Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) are just "PCTs in drag", NHS analyst and commentator Roy Lilley told delegates to the C+D Summit 2013. The NHS had been on a "£3 billion journey" to re-structure itself, but it had ended up "back in the same place", the NHS analyst and commentator said. Doctors were supposed to be "in the driving seat" of CCGs, but 80 per cent of their members were ex-PCT officers, Mr Lilley said. And he was not hopeful that CCGs would be able to solve the problem of the growing demand for the NHS combined with its reduced funding.

Pharmacists had "failed" to reduce the cost of the NHS, and the reforms were the last opportunity for them to engage with patients and promote self-care, he said.

Event partners

"You've got to commit yourselves because this is the last chance you're going to get," Mr Lilley told pharmacists at the summit. "Otherwise in 2015, the money won't be there." Mr Lilley also criticised high street pharmacists for putting an emphasis on cosmetics and defining themselves "by their target customer", compared to GP surgeries which were a "catch-all" for every section of society.  "When I go into high street pharmacist it doesn't look like somewhere I can go when I'm ill," he said.