Dispensing GP 'intimacy' will triumph, DDA conference hears

The unique nature of dispensing practice makes it ideally placed to engage with ‘frequent flyers’ within the health service, the DDA conference heard.

In the keynote address on day one of the 2025 conference, Roy Lilley, writer, nhsManagers.net said that the intimate relationship between prescribing and dispensing made it ideally placed to connect with frequent NHS service users such as the elderly and children, particularly in areas where there are transport and communication challenges.

Prevention was one of the three main tenets of the NHS 10-year plan, Lilley told the audience. However, he feared for the future of ‘bricks and mortar’ community pharmacy, due to the commercial pressures of high street retailing and challenges from online providers such as Amazon. In the UK, Amazon had appointed a superintendent pharmacist, he said.

He was also sceptical about the envisaged shift from secondary to primary care. He said: “This won’t be successful because hospitals do what hospitals do, and primary care does what primary care does. Hospitals have the equipment to do secondary care work. Surveys say that many GP surgeries are not fit for purpose.”

Looking at the NHS more widely, he said that one take home from his presentation was that the Treasury borrowed £18 billion in August 2025 to pay for public services, debt interest and benefits payments. He said: “The country is effectively broke. The NHS is in an unprecedented mess.”

His presentation was entitled: Is rural practice still viable? The NHS in flux

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