Shutterstock.com
GPs are set to vote on calls for Pharmacy First funding to be reallocated to general practice and the “one-mile-rule” for dispensing doctors to be abolished at the annual England Local Medical Council (LMC) conference, which will be held on 7 November 2025 in Manchester.
In the conference agenda, published in September 2025, Oxfordshire LMC proposed that the conference “notes the shortcomings of the Pharmacy First programme, including limitations in scope, variability in service quality and the risk of fragmenting patient care”.
It also suggested that funding had been “redirected” from general practice to Pharmacy First, and the scheme “undermines the sustainability of primary care services”. As a result, Oxfordshire LMC asks the conference to vote on calls for Pharmacy First funding “to be reallocated to general practice”.
“Schemes such as Pharmacy First, and the shift towards neighbourhood and multi-neighbourhood contracts, risk fragmenting patient care, eroding GP-patient relationships, and undermining clinical outcomes,” it added.
In the agenda, Oxfordshire LMC also asks GPs to vote on “calls for NHS policy to prioritise and protect continuity of care within general practice as a central measure of quality, funding and system design”.
Leyla Hannbeck, chief executive of the Independent Pharmacies Association, told The Pharmaceutical Journal that the motions are “deeply concerning”, adding that “GPs should be working with, not against, pharmacies to deliver the best possible service to patients”.
“Pharmacy First should be expanded to cover more conditions, where it is safe to do so. Instead of debating how to make services worse for patients the British Medical Association (BMA) should be working in partnership with the pharmacies patients rely on and trust,” she said.
Henry Gregg, chief executive of the National Pharmacy Association, commented: “It’s extremely disappointing if some GPs want to divert patients and funding away from the successful and popular Pharmacy First service. This flies in the face of everyone’s ambition to enhance access to neighbourhood health services in our communities.
“Such attitudes held by a minority of GPs will do nothing to help solve the huge challenges facing both pharmacies and general practice, both of which have faced significant pressures on their funding and in the case of pharmacies continue to shut in record numbers.
“It also does not reflect the many positive relationships individual pharmacies and GPs have on the ground with one another… we understand the pressure both community pharmacy and general practice faces but we won’t find solutions by pitting professional against professional.”
An investigation conducted by The Pharmaceutical Journal in August 2025 suggested that relationships between GPs and pharmacies were crucial to the success of Pharmacy First and funding pharmacy services.
On 17 October 2025, the BMA, which is hosting the national LMC conference, advised GPs to direct patients to community pharmacies, after distancing itself from a letter “sent in error” by two BMA committee members criticising the Pharmacy First scheme.
In the conference agenda, Redbridge LMC raised concerns “that chronic disease management undertaken by community pharmacists will create additional workload and professional responsibility for GPs”, and said GPs should be reimbursed for this.
Both Devon and Oxfordshire LMCs also proposed motions concerning dispensing doctors via calls for an “immediate abolition of the one-mile rule so that dispensing doctors can compete fairly with pharmacies and patients can choose where to have their prescriptions fulfilled”.
The one-mile rule was mentioned during a debate about Jhoots pharmacy in the House of Commons on 15 October 2025, when Cat Smith, Labour MP for Lancaster and Wyre, said a local dispensing doctor “cannot dispense prescriptions within one mile of a pharmacy, whether that is open or closed”.
Pharmacy minister Stephen Kinnock agreed: “It is patently absurd that a pharmacy that is not operating, as she just described, is blocking the ability of others to step in and fill the gap. That is something we have to resolve, and it is part of the work I have commissioned urgently.”
Kinnock also told MPs that he has asked health officials whether it is possible to strengthen the regulatory framework to address “pharmacies that do not play by the rules”.
