Local authority budget cuts combined with limited NHS resources could leave pharmacy in a "cul-de-sac" doing "an awful lot of work with very little reward", North-East London LPC secretary Hemant Patel warned the Avicenna conference.

"All the local authorities are going to face cuts in the coming years. They will be in charge of the health and wellbeing budget, and there's going to be limited resource," Mr Patel told delegates at the conference at Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire on September 16.

"All the local authorities are going to face cuts in the coming years... and there's going to be limited resource" Hemant Patel North-East London LPC

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The old NHS was going to be "dismantled" on March 31, he added, and the national pharmacy bodies had "not engaged with the government and with others, in terms of understanding the consequences of the health and social care act". The national organisations need to "think smart" and "not rush into decisions quickly", Mr Patel said. He added that, in the new NHS, politicians were looking for community pharmacy to "keep people in the community".

"At least two thirds of hospital admissions are avoidable. We need to work with the GPs and say: OK, we are going to help you save £450,000, or part of it – let's work together and bring down the cost," he said.

"This is really important because that is what the politicians are interested in, because it manages their budgets and it gets them votes."