Community pharmacies need representatives outside the profession to promote the sector excellence, the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) has said.

Speaking at the Pharmacy Show on Sunday (7 October), PSNC chief executive Simon Dukessaid that the sector ‘needs champions’ such as GPs to ‘advocate’ on behalf of pharmacy.

 

External champions needed

 

Mr Dukes told delegates: ‘We need others to be our champions. GPs could be advocates for community pharmacies.

‘The more champions we have outside the sector, [the more] we’ll start to see community pharmacy excellence really promoted.’

He added that ‘every contact’ with healthcare professionals, including pharmacists and GPs, ‘counts’ for the patients as they should always come first.

 

‘Insufficient resources for collaboration’

 

Doctors’ representative body the British Medical Association (BMA) GP committee chair Richard Vautrey said that the way NHS services are commissioned – using insufficient resources to deliver services to a growing population – sometimes works against practices and pharmacies collaborating effectively.

He told The Pharmacist yesterday (8 October): ‘GPs recognise that community pharmacists are highly-trained healthcare professionals who can provide a valuable service, offering clinical advice on a range of minor conditions and can improve patients’ understanding of their medication.

‘Across the country, GPs and pharmacists are working together both in practices and within a community to provide the best care for patients in the local area and by doing so improve the health of local populations.’