The Call to Action for community pharmacy is a "huge opportunity" to integrate the sector with the rest of the health service, a GP and a hospital pharmacist have said.

Pharmacists should use NHS England's consultation on their role in the health sector to call for access to a direct phone line to their GP and for permission to view the surgery's repeat prescription screen, said GP John Allingham at a Call to Action event last week (February 6).

"When the patient comes into [the pharmacy] and asks for ‘the little blue ones', you can look on a screen and have an idea what the blue ones might be," said Dr Allingham, who is medical secretary of Kent Local Medical Ccouncil.

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	"Integration is a watchword of the future [but] from my perspective it feels like you're not involved at all," he told pharmacists at the meeting organised by NHS England's Kent and Medway area team.

Communication channels between GPs and community pharmacists could be opened up if a "bulldozer" was taken to the contractual framework, Dr Allingham said. This would allow pharmacists to offer MURs to patients who needed them, rather than trying to hit a target, he said.

Helen Burn, hospital pharmacist and head of pharmacy at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, said pharmacists should use the consultation to call for full access to patients' summary care records. "It's silly that we have the same patients going into hospital and going out to the community. We need to share information so patients can get the best out of their medicines," she said.

Diabetes and respiratory consultants at the NHS Trust were "really keen" to work with community pharmacists to maximise the treatment they could offer patients with long-term conditions, she added.

Pharmacists have until March 18 to submit their response to the consultation by taking part in an NHS England questionnaire.