To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help upskill existing pharmacists to enable them to become independent prescribers, in the context that, from 2026, all newly qualified pharmacists will become prescribers from the point of registration.
Answered on
8 January 2025
The Government is committed to expanding the role of pharmacies and to better using the skills of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. That includes embedding services such as Pharmacy First and making prescribing part of the services delivered by community pharmacists.
The current seven conditions covered by Pharmacy First clinical pathways were informed by guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and were designed with input from an expert panel of clinicians. NHS England will keep the clinical scope of this service under review.
The community pharmacy independent prescribing Pathfinder programme is currently piloting clinical models to inform a commissioning framework that can be used to deliver national and local National Health Service clinical services with a prescribing element.
NHS England is funding up to 3,000 existing pharmacists each year to become independent prescribers and upskill the existing workforce to play a greater role in multidisciplinary clinical teams. This ensures we have more independent prescribers working in the community than ever before and is expected to lead to more diverse and rewarding careers in the community providing direct care for patients.
To ensure adequate supervision during training, NHS England is also providing national funding of supervisors and Designated Prescribing Practitioners. This will ensure the NHS is ready to support and mentor the trainee pharmacists from 2025/26 alongside currently registered pharmacists learning to be independent prescribers.