Chief pharmaceutical officer Dr Keith Ridge has promised there will be more integration between pharmacy and other professionals in future primary care contracts at the C+D Summit today.

Current contracts had failed to encourage collaborative working, but the new NHS structure should address the problem, Dr Ridge told delegates at the Summit.

Under the new-look structure, everyone who worked on primary care contracts in NHS England would be in the same building, which would fuel collaboration, Dr Ridge revealed.

He said this joint working would be vital to address problems in the NHS such as the "unacceptable level" of errors in medicines use.

Event partners

But NHS England area director for Kent and Medway Felicity Cox warned that the problems would not be solved by contractual changes alone. "I don't disagree the contract needs to change and better support some of these things but I think relationships are key," she told the C+D Summit.

Ms Cox acknowledged changes to the NHS structure had been "disruptive", but stressed that it created an opportunity to build new relationships and strengthen joint working.

Clare Gerada, GP and chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, agreed collaborative working was important to reduce the burden on "stressed" and "demoralised" GPs.

But she argued that pharmacists should be careful not to duplicate their work, and criticised MURs for increasing GP workloads. The profession should play a strong role in medicines management and self-limiting conditions, she said, leaving GPs free to focus on more complex patients.

Ms Gerada stressed this collaboration would only work under the new NHS structure if professionals focused on patients, rather than profit. "In this mess we have to make sure we focus on the patients and make sure we do no harm in commissioning," she said.