There are many ways in which community pharmacists and pharmacy technicians can support GPs and play a greater role as extended members of the practice team. As part of the Five Year Forward View for General Practice, NHS England is actively supporting the development of the role of the clinical practice pharmacist with the roll out of a pilot scheme to allocate a pharmacist per 30,000 of the population.

The NHS England Clinical Pharmacists in General Practice scheme commenced in Spring 2016 and saw £31 million of funding allocated to nearly 700 GP practices. Some 400 clinical pharmacists from hospital, community and general practice backgrounds are involved, and it is their role to work as part of the general practice team resolving day-to-day medicines issues, consulting and treating patients directly. This includes management of patients with long-term conditions, advising those on multiple medications and delivering a range of health checks. If proven to benefit patients and practices, it is anticipated that after the pilot finishes in 2019, practices or groups of practices will fully fund and continue their employment of pharmacists.

As a result, there is huge potential for the whole pharmacy team to develop their roles in supporting patient care. The NHS England Pharmacy Call to Action acknowledged community pharmacy as a “key, frontline health service that can and does provide healthcare and advice as an effective alternative to many over-subscribed primary care services in their communities, particularly those of local GP practices”. The 2015 NICE guideline (NG5) regarding medicines optimisation adds a further push to pharmacists and technicians in supporting patient care. Pharmacies taking up these ‘calls to action’ may also be able to mitigate to some degree the problems we are hearing about in general practice, such as the shortage of doctors, work overload and long hours.