All community pharmacies provide a range of services for the NHS under a national pharmacy contract. This contract is made up of three tiers:

• Essential Services - are provided by all pharmacy contractors
• Advanced Services - are provided by pharmacy contrators accredited to provide such services
• Enhanced Services - commissioned locally by Primary Care Organisations (PCOs) in response to the needs of the local population.

The LPC is established and draws its authority from Section 44 of the National Health Service Act 1977 which states that where the Primary Care Trust (PCT) is satisfied that a Committee formed for its area, or for the area of that and one or more other PCTs is representative of the persons providing pharmaceutical services from premises in the PCT area, it may recognise the Committee as the Local Pharmaceutical Committee for the area concerned.

There are similar local representative committees for Medicine - The LMC, Dentistry and Optometry. This means that whilst the LPC is recognised in statute it is not a statutory body.