Community Pharmacy England (CPE) will “make changes to its composition” to “better reflect the make-up” of community pharmacy, it announced last week (September 26).
The negotiator said the changes follow “independent expert recommendations to increase the number of 10-plus multiple members” on the CPE committee and “give the Independent Pharmacies Association (IPA) appointment rights” to CPE.
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Under a new interim arrangement, the IPA will nominate two representatives for multiples with 10-plus branches to CPE, in addition to the committee’s existing three members in the non-Company Chemists’ Association (CCA) multiples category, CPE said.
“An additional independent representative will be co-opted to the committee and the CCA representatives will be reduced by one,” it added.
Read more: Proposals to reduce CCA power in CPE committee voted down
The interim agreement was made during a “constructive meeting” between CPE and the sector bodies - the CCA, IPA and National Pharmacy Association (NPA) - this summer, the negotiator said.
It comes into effect from November 1 and will be in place until CPE elections in April 2027, it added.
“A long fight”
CPE said that the decision, which gives the IPA appointment rights to its committee “for the first time”, marks “a constructive step forwards in collaboration across the sector”.
IPA chief executive Dr Leyla Hannbeck told C+D that the organisation has been “fighting for proportionality on the CPE committee” for two years and previously wrote to the pharmacy minister because the issue “was not being addressed”.
“It has been a long fight for us and while we are pleased that one part of our concerns has been addressed, there is still some way to go to ensure fair representation for independent and family-owned pharmacies and reduce the overrepresentation of the CCA on the CPE committee,” she said.
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A CCA representative said that the body hopes the new interim arrangements “will now enable CPE to focus on securing the best possible agreement for the 2026/27 contractual framework”.
“The community pharmacy network remains underfunded and securing sufficient additional funding must be made the absolute priority for CPE,” they told C+D.
And NPA chair Olivier Picard said that the body is “pleased CPE will revisit representation when elections are due in 2027″ as it is “important that all parts of [the] fast-changing sector are represented accurately”.
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“It’s more apparent than ever that we need a united voice to make progress with the decision-makers in government who set our funding,” he added.
Meanwhile, Community Pharmacy London chair Raj Matharu told delegates at the Avicenna conference in Heathrow yesterday (September 28) that he wants to see “a conveyor belt of community pharmacy leaders” representing the sector at CPE.
“It is about just stepping up to the plate,” he added.
Read more: CPE asks pharmacies for steer on 2026/27 contract ‘priorities’
It comes after proposals to reduce the power of the CCA on CPE’s committee were voted down at a meeting last year - with representatives of smaller independent contractors choosing to maintain the power of corporate multiples, C+D understands.
In an annual report published last September, CPE vowed to change the composition of its twenty-four-person committee “as quickly as possible” after it “revisited” the issue of representation on its committee following “a significant period of change in sector ownership”.
