The British Medical Association (BMA) this week (November 26) said that GPs and community pharmacies must work together to reduce GP workloads.
Prescribing and dispensing policy lead for the BMA’s England GP committee (GPCE) Dr Shaba Nabi said that “community pharmacies have the potential to reduce general practice workloads, shorten patient waiting times and enhance primary care effectiveness”.
“However, this can only be achieved if general practice and community pharmacies work in a joined-up way,” she stressed.
The BMA’s GP committee “regularly meets with Community Pharmacy England (CPE) to strengthen collaboration, but NHS England must start working collaboratively with us too,” she added.
And Dr Nabi said that last week’s GP vote on pharmacy blood pressure checks “echoes the BMA’s concerns about the challenges facing dispensing practices, which the association intends to address in forthcoming government negotiations”.
GP vote
Last week, GP leaders from local medical committees (LMCs) voted in favour of pharmacy blood pressure checks being “terminated with immediate effect and the money put into pharmacy dispensing fees” instead.
The motion was “overwhelming carried”, meaning it will now become official BMA policy.
Read more: Pharmacy group urges BMA to reject ‘short-sighted’ GP vote on pharmacy BP checks
Speaking in a debate before the vote, one GP leader said that “patient demand has led to knee-jerk reactions to enable…community pharmacies to assess patients without the knowledge and information needed to treat them appropriately.”
Another called for Pharmacy First to be “immediately discontinued and the funding redirected into core general practice”.
“Race to the bottom”
But the pharmacy sector reacted with dismay to the vote.
Numark chair Professor Harry McQuillan yesterday (November 28) said that if the GP leaders were “referring to the need for pharmacy teams to have access to a shared clinical care record owned by the patient to assist decision making, I’m 100% behind that”.
“[But] if the inference is that pharmacists and their teams are not equipped to provide such services, I would contest that vehemently,” he added.
Read more: BMA’s top GP warns budget will ‘break’ pharmacies – but less than GPs
And McQuillan said that the call for Pharmacy First to be cut was “at odds” with another made during the conference for the NHS to “stop pitting GPs and community pharmacy against each other”.
“The one thing I do agree with from the conference was the clear call for the community pharmacy network to be fully funded for the essential dispensing service,” McQuillan said.
It is “an area of common ground that we should build upon and avoid the race to the bottom”, he added.
“Terribly shortsighted”
National Pharmacy Association (NPA) chair Nick Kaye said earlier this week (November 25) that “it benefits no-one, least of all patients, for one set of health care professionals to talk down the services provided by another”.
He added that it would be “terribly shortsighted to row back on preventative services such as hypertension case finding, which will be cost-saving as well as lifesaving in the long term”.
Read more: NHSE relaunches Pharmacy First marketing campaign with ‘minor revisions’
“Investment is needed across the system, including both general practice and community pharmacies, working together to give the best possible care,” Kaye said.
“Pharmacists want to be team players, with all professions in primary and secondary care respecting each other’s skills and working together in the interests of patients,” he added.
Independent Pharmacies Association (IPA) chief executive Dr Leyla Hannbeck last week said that the vote was “deeply regrettable and massively disappointing”.
Read more: GPs to vote on ‘immediate’ end to pharmacy blood pressure checks
And before the vote, the Pharmacists Voice urged the BMA to reject the motion and expressed its “grave concern” about its potential impact.
“Dismissing or undermining” pharmacists’ “vital contributions only serves to weaken NHS primary care at a time when collaborative solutions are needed most”, it said.