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If he wants to make the NHS run smoothly, Wes Streeting ought to get his priorities right.

Instead of expending energy criticising the British Medical Association (BMA) last week for trying to “wreck” the health service by “rushing to industrial action”, the health secretary should have pressed the trade union to investigate how and why a letter written by two of its members urging GPs to divert patients away from Pharmacy First was sent out.

We never got to the bottom of that, did we? The BMA told this magazine it had “been in contact” with Dr Becky Haines and Dr Paul Evans about the communication, which appallingly instructed GPs to tell patients to go to their “nearest emergency department/A&E immediately” rather than use a pharmacy.

The doctors even had the temerity to suggest Pharmacy First was a way of getting patients “seen by less-skilled people”. Bewilderingly, the BMA, who distanced itself from the letter, said it was “sent in error without the knowledge of the authors”. Who, then, sent it out? Why was it written in the first place?

And what are we to make of the BMA contacting the pair? Is that supposed to be an investigation-of-sorts?

However, there’s a more important reason for Streeting to ensure the BMA is investigating the letter beyond addressing its besmirching of pharmacists.

For the sake of Labour’s 10-year NHS plan, he must push the BMA to establish if other GPs agree with the views expressed in it because without collaboration between general practice and pharmacy, the plan is dead in the water.

If there are GPs out there who are intent on cultivating suspicion and creating division between the two professions, it risks doing untold damage to the government’s community-based NHS reforms.

It’s Streeting’s duty to find out if the BMA contains individuals who have a grudge against community pharmacy for whatever reason, then confront the organisation about it.

I’d like to think the vast majority of GPs shook their heads in disapproval at news of the letter. More to the point, I’d like to think they buried their heads in their hands.

Neil Trainis is the editor of Independent Community Pharmacist.