Pharmacists need to "get on NHS England's case" if they want access to patients' medical records, patient group National Voices has said.

The profession must put pressure on NHS England's director for patients and information Tim Kelsey, said National Voices chief executive Jeremy Taylor, in response to complaints from commissioners and pharmacists that a lack of access to patient records was holding the sector back.

"It's [Mr Kelsey's] job to sort [this] out. He's the champion for using data to drive health quality improvement and I'm not sure you've been on his case yet," Mr Taylor told pharmacists at a debate on the profession's public health role organised by think tank the King's Fund last week (January 27).

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	Mr Taylor made the comment in response to Lincolnshire East CCG chair Brynnen Massey, who said a lack of access to records was preventing pharmacists from providing joined-up care with GPs and nurses.

"We've tried very hard to integrate pharmacy into the primary healthcare team but they need to be able to access information. And it's not happening," Dr Massey said.

This made it hard to involve pharmacists in multi-disciplinary teams that were set up to discuss difficult patients, he said.

"Once we say that community pharmacists are going to come, [NHS organisations say] ‘you've got to get permission from the patient before you can discuss the case'. Whereas there's no problem with community nurses," he added.

Alliance Boots' healthcare public affairs director Tricia Kennerley agreed that without access to patient records, pharmacists were "operating with one hand tied behind our back".

Earlier this month, health secretary Jeremy Hunt and former health secretary and leader of the house Andrew Lansley acknowledged that lack of access to patient records was a "blockage" to developing pharmacy's role. They pledged to give the sector priority access to records to unlock pharmacy's "tremendous potential" in public health and disease prevention.