Our response to the LMC Pharmacy First letter

In response to LMC criticism of the Pharmacy First service reported in The Times (BMA leaders suggest GPs ‘overwhelm A&Es’ in revolt against NHS reforms), Community Pharmacy England wrote a letter to the editor addressing the LMC’s suggestion, with other national pharmacy organisations as co-signatories.

Letter sent to The Times

Dear Sir,

It was extremely troubling to see yesterday in black and white (BMA leaders suggest GPs ‘overwhelm A&Es’ in revolt against NHS reforms) the rhetoric from some GPs and the adversarial approach to the wider NHS. Their words suggest a total disregard for patients, other clinical professionals in pharmacies and hospitals, as well as the wider public who rely on these services day in and day out.

The primary purpose of Pharmacy First is to relieve pressure on access to GP appointments – a massive problem for patients – so that GPs can concentrate their energies on higher acuity needs of patients. The service is designed to enable all clinical professionals – whether pharmacists and their teams, or GPs and theirs, to act at the top of their professional licence in the best interests of patients and communities.

If some GPs would rather block this than focus on helping patients and the public to get the healthcare they need, when they need it, it says something quite worrying about their understanding of the crisis facing the NHS. Pharmacy First is a critical service which is already helping millions of people and has the potential to do so much more – many GPs value it, but more importantly, patients do, and public polling shows time and again that they want community pharmacies to be empowered to do even more.

Sneering at other NHS clinical professionals does nothing to solve the crisis in the NHS or the nation’s health. Competition between healthcare providers has been exacerbated in the health service for many years by the way in which services are commissioned. This does not excuse the appalling rhetoric we have seen this week, and which we know sadly some pharmacists have to deal with on a regular basis, but it does underline once again why we need Government to facilitate the shift from competition to collaboration, or from fragmentation to integration, as it delivers its Ten-Year Health Plan.

There are other examples across the country where GPs and pharmacists work closely together to ensure patients get the very best from the NHS, and this is the collaborative and cooperative approach we applaud.

Janet Morrison OBE, Chief Executive, Community Pharmacy England

Malcolm Harrison, Chief Executive, Company Chemists’ Association

Dr Leyla Hannbeck, Chief Executive, Independent Pharmacies Association

Henry Gregg, Chief Executive, National Pharmacy Association

Prof Claire Anderson, President, Royal Pharmaceutical Society

Letter as it appeared in The Times (16/10/2025)

Accompanying statement

We also issued the following statement to the trade press.

Our CEO, Janet Morrison said: 

“We are very troubled by this combative approach and are writing to The Times about it, with other national pharmacy organisations as co-signatories. The approach taken by these GPs suggests a total disregard for patients and for other health professionals, and does nothing to help resolve the ongoing crisis in the health service. As everyone in community pharmacy knows, Pharmacy First is supporting patients and helping to improve access to GP appointments – it is no surprise that the public wants to see pharmacies doing more services like this in the future. This is yet another example showing exactly why we need to see more coherent national commissioning of services which support collaboration between all healthcare professionals.”