Community pharmacy must raise its profile among commissioners and the public or risk being left out of the new NHS strategy, senior GP and commissioner Howard Stoate has warned.

Pharmacists could play a pivotal role in helping the overburdened health service but people were largely unaware of what they could do, Dr Stoate, chair of Bexley clinical commissioning group (CCG), told C+D in an exclusive interview on Tuesday (June 18).

Although some pharmacists were "extremely good", the profession had not promoted itself adequately, Dr Stoate argued at an NHS seminar hosted by law firm Matthew, Arnold & Baldwin in Watford.

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	Dr Stoate reported that Bexley CCG had put a £500,000 anticoagulation service out to tender this year but Boots had been the only pharmacy provider to apply. "Pharmacists can do this clinical stuff but they never come to see me," he stressed. "We have £500,000 contracts going, so where are you guys?"

This lack of awareness also extended to patients, Dr Stoate said, which could hamper pharmacy's role in the strategy to reduce the burden on emergency care.

The government launched a consultation on emergency care services this week (June 17) and set out principles for overhauling the system, including better status and use of pharmacists. The consultation is part of an overarching review of emergency care launched in January, which will inform the government's future strategy.

Although Dr Stoate was confident pharmacy could achieve some of the government's objectives – increasing self-care and giving patients same-day access to primary care – he warned the profession could go unnoticed. "What worries me is there was a survey of patients on where to go for out-of-hours care and only 3 per cent mentioned pharmacy," he told C+D.

PSNC argued on Tuesday (June 18) that pharmacy had "huge potential" to help reduce the burden on emergency care, but there must be national consistency, which would require action from NHS chiefs.

PSNC head of NHS services Alastair Buxton called for national service templates and incentives for commissioners to expand pharmacy services.

"We have some excellent examples of local pharmacy schemes that are helping pharmacies to manage patients with long-term conditions and minor ailments more widely in the community, but to ensure access to these services is consistent across the country, we now need to have more direction from above," he argued.