Pharmacy groups have urged contractors to engage with LPCs, after a C+D survey revealed that half of pharmacists felt the committees were failing to represent their views to commissioners.

Forty-eight per cent of 138 readers that responded to the survey, which ran for five weeks in February, felt their LPC had done a bad job at representing them to CCGs and local authorities, since the reforms came into effect in April last year. Fifty-two per cent thought they had done well at representing them.

Independent Pharmacy Federation chair Claire Ward said the findings were "about right" and called on pharmacists to "demand" that LPCs got their voice across.

Pharmacy Voice chief executive Rob Darracott said there were "fantastic examples of LPC leaders pushing from the front"	More on the impact of the reforms Uncertainty continues for NMS as NHS England awaits evaluation NHS reforms have neglected pharmacy so far, survey reveals NHS reforms: how you were affected
	"You've got some really forward-thinking, engaged LPCs, and some that aren't. It's a shame that so much resource is going into LPCs and yet there is such sporadic results coming out," she told C+D.

PSNC head of NHS services Alastair Buxton said there would "always" be some LPCs that got better results than others and encouraged contractors to "get involved with their LPC as much as they can".

"It may be there are things pharmacies can do to help their LPC better represent them. Or by becoming LPC members themselves, pharmacists can drive change from within," he told C+D.

LPCs had been working hard to "get to grips" with the new commissioning environment over the past year and build relationships with those who held the budgets for pharmacy services, Mr Buxton added.

Pharmacy Voice chief executive Rob Darracott agreed there were "fantastic examples of LPC leaders pushing from the front", but said that if this was not happening in some areas then contractors needed "to be asking why".

Responding to survey findings that revealed that more than three-quarters of pharmacists felt the reforms had not been communicated well by the government and pharmacy bodies, Mr Darracott said there had been "no shortage of material" released by Pharmacy Voice, the RPS and PSNC to explain the changes.

"We've tried to focus on the impact of the reforms, rather than the dry nature of the structural reorganisation. But we clearly need to do more to bring national and local representation together to ensure the opportunities and challenges of the new system are clear to pharmacists," he added.

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