The Company Chemists’ Association (CCA), the Independent Pharmacies Association (IPA), the National Pharmacy Association (NPA), the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) and Community Pharmacy England (CPE) have written a joint letter in The Times.
Published today (October 16), the letter responds to suggestions from certain GPs that doctors should not refer patients to the Pharmacy First service.
The bodies said that “the rhetoric from some GPs and their adversarial approach to the wider NHS, including community pharmacies, is troubling”.
Read more: BMA distances itself from controversial Pharmacy First letter
“Sneering at other clinical professionals does nothing to solve the crisis in the NHS and their words suggest a disregard for those reliant on health services”, they stressed.
The letter highlighted that “the main purpose of the Pharmacy First service is to relieve pressure on access to GP appointments”.
“That some GPs would rather block this than focus on helping patients to get the healthcare they need says something worrying about their understanding of the crisis facing the NHS,” it added.
BMA distances itself
It comes after The Times last week reported that an apparent British Medical Association (BMA) letter was sent to GPs suggesting they should not refer patients to the Pharmacy First service, as the scheme has a “significant potential to undermine” doctors.
The letter claimed that patients using Pharmacy First are “being seen by less-skilled people to further enable the steady downgrade of patient expectations”, according to the newspaper.
Read more: GPs to vote on ‘immediate’ end to pharmacy blood pressure checks
But when contacted by C+D, the BMA distanced itself from the letter and stressed that it was “not a BMA communication” and was sent “in error” by “North East and North Cumbria local medical committees (LMCs) to local practices”.
Meanwhile, IT officials from the BMA and the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) last month urged NHS England (NHSE) to postpone GP Connect “update record’s” October 1 switch-on date amid concerns of “incorrect” patient records.
