England's deputy pharmaceutical officer Clare Howard has warned that pharmacists can no longer "put medicines in a bag and hope patients take them as intended", but must prove their worth to secure funding.

The profession would have "significant questions" to answer if the number of patients failing to take their medicines correctly – estimated to be between 30 and 50 per cent – had not dropped in 10 years, Ms Howard told the PSNC conference on Wednesday (April 24).

Ms Howard recognised that some pharmacies were doing "inspirational" work, but stressed that community pharmacy would need to prove its worth in boosting medicines adherence, cutting waste and increasing safety to justify further funding.

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	She urged pharmacists to focus on quality rather than numbers, hinting that this could underpin the future pharmacy contract. "It's not how many MURs and NMS [interventions] you've done, it's what impact they've had. And that's food for thought I think pharmacy will need to grapple with in future," Ms Howard said.

Ms Howard named medication errors, which were still at an "unacceptable level", and medicines-incident reporting as key areas for pharmacy to address. Pharmacies submitted fewer reports than acute hospitals and GPs, despite the most critical drugs –  including opioids, antibiotics and warfarin – being dispensed by pharmacists every day. "I don't think we can argue we're capturing the level of incidents going on out there."

Ms Howard revealed that NHS England is drawing up a strategy to support pharmacists to better optimise medicines. But she suggested that pharmacists would struggle to secure funding unless they could demonstrate outcomes first.

"If we can prove we can reduce medicines waste and improve the way patients take their medicines, then the funding will start to follow," she said.

Earlier in the conference, PSNC chief executive Sue Sharpe revealed that NHS England was becoming "increasingly involved" in contract negotiations. But she reiterated that the process had been delayed by the upheaval of NHS reforms. "While we have made a great deal of progress in our work, it's still very much unfinished business," she said.