Pharmacy leaders have hit back at GP and Tory MP Phillip Lee, who last week suggested pharmacists were being paid for "counting Smarties" and money could be saved by GP surgeries dispensing instead.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) said it was shocked to hear the comments made by Dr Lee, who argued that taxpayers were subsidising pharmacies to "check the box and then sign".

PSNC said pharmacy was "part of the solution, not part of the problem" after the Bracknell MP said money could by saved by every GP surgey becoming a dispensing practice.

"It's like counting Smarties – all that's required is to check the box and sign" Phillip Lee, Conservative MP	More on pharmacy services MSP's ‘methadone millionaires' claim a ‘disgrace' NHS Alliance chief: focus on services over       dispensing in new NHS Top GP places pharmacy 'at the centre' of new NHS
	"I can't quite work out why all practices can't be dispensing," Dr Lee told an Institute of Economic Affairs meeting last week (November 26).  "I've worked in dispensing, it's like counting Smarties, you don't have to be terribly intellectual to be able to do it. All that's required is for someone to check the box and then sign."

Dr Lee was speaking on behalf of the Conservatives' Free Enterprise Group about how to cut the drugs budget to help save the NHS money. "I don't quite know why the taxpayer subsidises Boots' and Lloydspharmacy's share prices, but we need to stop," he added.

But RPS president Martin Astbury, who has since written to the Prime Minister about the comments, branded the practising GP "misinformed". "I was shocked to read these comments from an MP and a GP, which represent a worrying lack of appreciation and a misinformed view of the current method of healthcare delivery in the NHS," he said. "Pharmacists are the experts on medicines and the act of supplying medicines to patients is a highly skilled activity," he stressed, adding that pharmacy had an "enviable record of productivity".

PSNC pointed out pharmacists drove down medicines costs and were "uniquely placed" to optimise medicines use. PSNC chief executive Sue Sharpe said: "With many GPs already having a financial interest in pharmacies, it is not clear how moving dispensing from community pharmacies to GP surgeries would save the NHS money."

"Better use of primary care, with GPs and pharmacists working together to help patients to stay out of hospital, is the most effective means of balancing the NHS budget in the long term."

Last year, Dr Lee called for a cut in community pharmacy's funding to pay for GP dispensing.

Dr Lee refused C+D's request for a response to the pharmacy reaction to his comments.