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Community Pharmacy England chief executive Janet Morrison has waded into the furore surrounding a letter apparently sent by senior members of the British Medical Association advising GPs to divert patients away from Pharmacy First by accusing them of having a “total disregard for patients”.

A report in The Times today claiming a letter written by Dr Becky Haines and Dr Paul Evans urging GPs to tell patients who try to make online bookings for referrals to Pharmacy First to go to their “nearest emergency department/A&E immediately” drew a sharp response from Morrison (pictured).

In their letter, Haines, a member of the BMA’s national GP committee, and North-East and North Cumbria Local Medical Committee chair Dr Paul Evans, told practices to tell patients there was “no option to divert to pharmacy” and claimed Pharmacy First had “significant potential to undermine” doctors.

“We are very troubled by this combative approach and are writing to The Times about it, with other national pharmacy organisations as co-signatories,” Morrison said. “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.”

Extremely disappointing senior BMA figures want to divert people away from Pharmacy First

The National Pharmacy Association chief executive Henry Gregg said it was “extremely disappointing if some senior figures in the BMA want to divert people” away from Pharmacy First.

“That would not help patients and fly in the face of everyone’s ambition to enhance access to neighbourhood health services for in our communities,” he said.

“We want to work with our colleagues across primary care including general practice to improve neighbourhood services for patients and ensure all healthcare professionals, including expert community pharmacists and general practitioners - work collaboratively to serve their communities.”

He added: “The future of primary care is inevitably going to involve everyone in primary care working together ever more closely, so it makes sense to put any differences aside in the interests of expanding and improving sustainable pharmacy and GP services for everyone.”

In a statement released a few hours ago, the BMA said the advice was not one of its communications and its contents did “not represent the position of the BMA or GP Committee England”. It also said the letter was “sent in error without the knowledge of the authors”.

When asked if it intended to speak to Dr Evans and Dr Haines about the letter to establish why it was sent out, the BMA told Independent Community Pharmacist: “We've been in contact with them but as we (said in our statement), LMCs are independent bodies and the BMA has no formal role in their oversight or conduct”.