Cuts to pharmacy funding are "inevitable" as the NHS attempts to meet its £20 billion efficiency target, Richard Vautrey, deputy chair of the BMA's GP Committee, has warned.

Responding to the news that PSNC's interim funding could leave pharmacists out of pocket, Dr Vautrey said the financial climate meant all healthcare professions were feeling the pinch.

"GPs particularly have seen their income fall, so this is an inevitable situation for pharmacy as well" Richard Vautrey, BMA

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"The reality for doctors and nurses has been that they have seen their pay frozen – and in many cases cut – during the past few years," he told C+D. "GPs particularly have seen their income fall, so this is an inevitable situation for pharmacy as well – the profession won't be immune to what is happening throughout the rest of healthcare." Dr Vautrey added that, faced with a lack of funding in healthcare, all negotiators were now having to work "that much harder".

However, North-East London LPC secretary Hemant Patel refuted the claims. He argued that GPs would not tolerate a negotiating body that produced such "poor returns" as PSNC. He said PSNC's interim funding announcement, which will see category M clawbacks of £72.5 million per quarter, had come as a "shock".

"If GPs faced such dramatic fluctuations in their income, their negotiators would get a real big boot up the pants," said Mr Patel. "The PSNC is failing to secure a place for pharmacy in the newly organised health and social care system."