A new event has launched to bring together primary care professionals including general practice and community pharmacy, to help strengthen collaborative working.
The Community Pharmacy & General Practice Conference, organised in partnership with Healthcare Leader and in association with the National Pharmacy Association, takes place on 21–22 June 2026.
The two-day event at the Birmingham National Conference Centre (NCC) will bring together more than 1,000 primary care professionals including practice managers, GPs, community pharmacists, practice and PCN pharmacists, ICB leaders and more to showcase joint working needed for the 10-year health plan.
There will be more than 100 speakers, two high-level keynote speakers, eight conferences streams, over 80 sessions and over 70 exhibitors at this free to attend event.
Stronger connections between community pharmacists and general practice and community pharmacy are essential to the success of the 10-year health plan and the creation of more connected neighbourhood care.
However, since both sectors are under immense financial pressure and face overwhelming patient neither can afford to tackle challenges alone.
The event will explore how these services can work together, combining unique clinical and medicines knowledge to increase access, improve patient care and open up new service opportunities. The agenda will be highly practical showcasing case studies and examples from areas where community pharmacy and general practice are already working together effectively to deliver neighbourhood care.
The event is open to anyone working to strengthen collaboration and improve outcomes across primary care. Interested primary care professionals can register for free.
Tracy Dell, practice business manager and locum working in North and West Yorkshire and who is on the event’s programme advisory board said that practice managers ‘are in a good position to create and maintain strong working relationships with their community pharmacy colleagues’.
She added: ‘Collaboration isn’t just about sharing tasks and focusing on delivering our contracts — it’s about trust, insight, respect and awareness of each other’s abilities and functions, and a common goal of better patient outcomes.
‘We need to acknowledge that community pharmacy is part of the NHS and jointly demonstrate the NHS is seamless which is how it should be for our patients. When general practice and pharmacy work together, patients benefit — and so does the system. I have developed strong working relationships with my community pharmacy colleagues and we have invested in gaining understanding of how our organisations operate so that they now complement each other. We must stop seeing community pharmacy as our competitors and embrace joint working for the benefit of all’.
More information about The Community Pharmacy and General Practice Conference can be found here.
