Independent pharmacy bodies have hailed the Community Pharmacy Future project – funded and piloted by Boots, the Co-operative Pharmacy, Lloydspharmacy and Rowlands – as an example of pharmacy "pulling together" to secure two new national services for community pharmacy and pave the way for future commissioning.

Launched last week, the project will see pharmacists at multiples in the north-west of England trial medicines support services for COPD sufferers and older patients on multiple drugs.

Lloydspharmacy's Andy Murdock said the project involved the first example of a full health economic evaluation of a community pharmacy service

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The six-month project has been developed in conjunction with PSNC, the Department of Health and national and local commissioners, and the multiples involved hope it will lead to "new national pharmacy services". Alliance Boots healthcare public affairs director Tricia Kennerley told C+D that, while they hope the services are commissioned, it "will be something that PSNC will have to negotiate on behalf of community pharmacy with the NHS commissioning board".

And Andy Murdock, external relations and policy director at Lloydspharmacy parent company Celesio UK, said the project involved the first example of a full health economic evaluation of a community pharmacy service and that this could form a template for future evaluation and commissioning of more national pharmacy services.

The evaluation will be carried out by health economists IMS Health. "We hope to gather a vast amount of data... to prove what the value of pharmacy is worth," Mr Murdock told the C+D Senate last week. "If we can establish from that a template… why can't that be repeated with diabetes, cardiac, other services that pharmacy might want to deliver?"

In a week in which C+D readers suggested that upcoming funding cuts were easier for multiples to endure, Ms Kennerley was quick to stress that the project was intended to benefit community pharmacy as a whole.

"It is our clear aim that these services should be available to all the eligible customers of all community pharmacies," she said. "We want to gather evidence that will support their commissioning as new national services. It is not good enough just for them to work in a few pharmacies only."

And independent representatives supported the project, with the IPF agreeing that there was "no danger of independents getting left out in the cold" and Numark hailing the project as an example of the sector "pulling together".

IPF chairman Fin McCaul said the project was a "huge step forward for community pharmacy. This is an opportunity for pharmacists to demonstrate their ability to improve patients' quality of life."

Numark director of pharmacy services Mimi Lau added: "At last, the pharmacy profession has pulled together for the benefit of all contractors to prove the value of pharmacy in medicines optimisation."

Pharmacies in the Wirral run by the four multiples will pilot health interventions in COPD, while pharmacies in Wigan will trial a support service for older patients on four or more medicines. Both services will include initial assessments, lifestyle advice, monitoring of symptoms and adherence and targeted MURs.