GP leaders in England have voted in favour of terminating pharmacy blood pressure checks with ‘immediate effect’.

The British Medical Associations (BMA) Local Medical Committee (LMC) Conference saw GPs debate community pharmacy funding and place emphasis on the sector’s ‘core work’ of dispensing.

The motion, proposed by Devon LMC, suggested that pharmacy blood pressure checks generated ‘more work’ for GP practices.

It said they should be ‘terminated with immediate effect and the money put into pharmacy dispensing fees’.

The motion also focused on the need for appropriate dispensing funding in pharmacies, and for action be taken to stop general practice and community pharmacy pitting against one another.

It also called for Pharmacy First schemes to ‘follow guidelines on prescribing and ensure appropriate antibiotic stewardship’ and for the survival of pharmacies to ‘not be made contingent upon doing work traditionally and contractually the remit of general practice’.

It was passed during the conference, meaning it now becomes BMA policy.

‘We are not picking a fight’

Leading the debate from LMC Devon, GP Vikki Taylor-St Ruth, said: ‘This motion is not picking a fight with hardworking community pharmacy teams or to their efforts – they, like us in GP, are in crisis trying to survive.

‘However, their survival must not rely on the overfunding of work that would usually fall to general practice.’

She added that money put into pharmacy blood pressure checks should be directed to ‘increasing pharmacy dispensing fees and fund GP activity better’.

‘Pharmacies should not have to rely on high payments for taking a one-off blood pressure,’ added Dr Taylor-St Ruth.

The community pharmacy hypertension case-finding service was first introduced in October 2021, with more than 100,000 blood pressure checks delivered in the first six months.

Last year, community pharmacy blood pressure checks more than doubled and an online tool was launched to help patients in England find a pharmacy offering the NHS Blood Pressure Check Service.

‘GPs stopped using Pharmacy First altogether’

As part of the debate, Dr Taylor-St Ruth also claimed there were concerns around the Pharmacy First scheme in England, including around antimicrobial resistance and training for the scheme.

‘To give you anecdotal feedback from my colleagues, in my practice many have stopped using Pharmacy First altogether with time taken to refer, explain to patients and patients [bouncing] back invariably at the end of the day, simply making it quicker for duty to sort the patients themselves,’ she said.

‘On the flipside, my community pharmacy colleagues tell me how inefficient the system is, with inadequate IT, endless box ticking and hoop jumping to get paid.

‘The fact that they persevere with it at all gives an indication of how poorly funded they are and how much money they lose daily on core dispensing work.’

‘Stop pitting GPs and pharmacies against each other’

The Devon LMC motion also urged the BMA’s General Practice Committee (GPC) to put ‘pressure on NHS England to support and adequately fund community pharmacy and its core work’.

‘They, like us, have been deliberately left to wither on the vine of a five-year contract with sub inflationary uplifts, requiring them to do more with less, underfunded and undervalued,’ said Dr Taylor-St Ruth.

‘In our area, much like GPs, we are losing community pharmacists. Pharmacies closed for days, unable to source locums.’

She added: ‘GPC must demand that NHS England stops pitting GPs and community pharmacy against each other.

‘GPC must continue to fight to restore the core for GPs, but also support our colleagues in community pharmacy in their quest for core funding uplift. Their and our survival is vital for our patients.’

Vote is ‘deeply regrettable and massively disappointing’

Responding to the vote, chief executive of the Independent Pharmacies Association, Dr Leyla Hannbeck, said: ‘It is deeply regrettable and massively disappointing that the BMA has passed a motion that seems in favour of reducing patient access to vital healthcare and pharmacy services.

‘The solution to the NHS crisis lies in the government adopting a joined-up approach to funding and planning primary care, with community pharmacies and GPs at its heart working collaboratively.

‘Instead, we have a situation where GPs are being pitted against pharmacies, ultimately leaving patients to lose out.’

She warned that hypertension was ‘a ticking time bomb’ and that ‘any suggestion of reducing patient access and services goes against everything our members stand for’.

An exclusive roundtable hosted by The Pharmacist earlier this year brought together community pharmacy and general practice representatives to discuss the successes, challenges and future of Pharmacy First.

Funding and workload pressures on both sectors underpin many of the challenges facing the service, and our attendees agreed that Pharmacy First was not a solution to GP access pressures nor to the community pharmacy funding crisis.

Separately, a study this month revealed that a pharmacy-led sore throat treatment had been found to result in fewer same-day antibiotic prescriptions than those given during GP consultations.