The value of pharmacists working in general practice was "often poorly understood and little-publicised", the primary care organisation said in a document produced with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. It called for the development of "simple business templates" to promote this arrangement.
 

There was a need for a "clear career pathway" for pharmacists to make the transition to a GP practice, NHS Alliance said. Employing a pharmacist would cost a practice between half and two-thirds of an equivalent full-time salaried GP, it said.
 

A C+D poll timed to coincide with the report's launch yesterday (December 4) revealed that 78 per cent of 150 respondents felt pharmacists should "embrace opportunities" for closer collaboration with GPs. However, 22 per cent of respondents to the poll, which ran from November 28 to December 5, believed working in general practice could undermine the sector's independence.
 

NHS England's Five Year Forward View, published in October, recommended that pharmacists work alongside other health professionals in expanded GP practices. GPs who attended the NHS Alliance event told C+D that this document should encourage their colleagues to make better use of pharmacists.
 

NHS Alliance clinical lead Dr Ken Aswani said GP practices found it difficult to recruit healthcare professionals with the correct skills and needed to recognise pharmacists could be the solution to this problem.
 

There needed to be a "significant number" of practices that were willing to "run with" the idea of employing pharmacists, and these could then be used as a model for others to develop further, Dr Aswani told C+D.
 

'The right thing to do'
 

Dr Amit Bhargava, a GP and chief clinical officer for Crawley CCG, said the Five Year Forward View gave practices the "space to imagine a future" in which they collaborated with other healthcare partners, such as pharmacists.
 

"Are the professions ready? Probably not. Is it the right thing to do? Absolutely," he told C+D.
 

Dr Dharini Shanmugabavan, a GP and member of NHS Alliance's national executive, said she knew of practices that already employed pharmacists to diagnose and treat patients. "What you need [to know] is how do you get more pharmacists [involved] and what makes them cost-effective," she told C+D.
 

In October, pharmacists warned that NHS England's plans to boost collaboration in primary care would only work if the imbalance of power between pharmacists and GPs was addressed.

	What are the benefits of working in a GP practice?