Chris Bennett: Primary care in the high street will need to be fought for

Reaction to the We are Primary Care campaign in the pages of the Times newspaper has been disappointing if not unexpected. It's a sad reminder of how much more needs to be done to modernise healthcare delivery.

 We Are Primary Care paper was published  last week as a join effort, lead by Pharmacy Voice, to use the skills of primary healthcare specialists in the high street to take pressure off of GPs and hospitals. To back its campaign up it wrote to the Times. Letters from an ophthalmologist and, I presume, a GP appeared shortly after challenging the assertions made. The ophthalmologist said the involvement of optometrists in medical eye conditions had resulted in fragmentation and multiplication of demands that had ended up costing the NHS more than should be the case. A Bristol doctor suggested that more well-intentioned advice from other primary care agencies in the high street will only make things worse for an over burdened service.