| Some pharmacies to start issuing NHS electronic prescriptions ... pharmacies could claim, as well as the speed of the roll-out of the project. It comes as changes to pharmacist education mean that from September 2026, all newly qualified pharmacists will become independent prescribers at the point of registration. And the new Labour government has promised a Community Pharmacist Prescribing Service as part of its pre-election manifesto. It said this would grant more pharmaci ... Date: 29-08-2024 Categories: • Community • News |
| Support DPPs with protected learning time, RPS urges ... s helps us come closer to addressing some of the current DPP challenges for community pharmacy.' A parliamentary committee report published in May identified the need to ensure those graduating as independent prescribers from 2026 are ‘given protected learning time, adequate supervision, career development opportunities and that there are commissioned services available so they regularly make use of their IP qualific ... Date: 12-08-2024 Categories: • Community • News |
| Pre-reg trainees will be supported by ‘communities of practice’, promises NHSE ... has said. And it has also offered to match designated prescribing practitioners (DPPs) with training placements that need access to DPP supervision. This comes as NHSE has urged active pharmacy independent prescribers to consider training as designated prescribing practitioners (DPP) under its funded and flexible training offer with ProPharmace. ‘On completion of this course (or if you are a DPP already and wou ... Date: 12-06-2024 Categories: • Community • In Practice • News |
| ‘Greater planning’ needed on pharmacy workforce across all settings ... of MPs has urged. A new report published by the Health and Social Care Committee (HSCC) stressed this would become ‘ever more urgent’ as 2026 approaches and all newly qualified pharmacists will be independent prescribers. The 68-page document, which comes as part of the committee’s inquiry into pharmacy services, aired its specific concerns around the pharmacy workforce in England and reiterated calls for an ‘inte ... Date: 29-05-2024 Categories: • Community • In Practice • News |
| New chief strategy officer and deputy registrar appointed at GPhC ... at Mr Voce had worked ‘closely and effectively with stakeholders across Great Britain to introduce once-in-a-generation reforms which will mean that from 2026, all newly qualified pharmacists will be independent prescribers when they join the register’. ‘Louise will continue this important work to make sure that the regulation of the education and training of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians is strategically desi ... Date: 15-05-2024 Categories: • Community • In Practice • News |
| ARRS funding for DPPs could support community trainees ... ers’, and it had met with ‘multiple key stakeholders’ to discuss the issues that needed addressing. ‘These included but not limited to locating the DPPs in our respective areas, supporting current independent prescribers (IPs) to become DPPs and ultimately, for those prescribers within GP surgeries and other settings recognising the benefit of supporting those pharmacists working within the community pharmacy sector, ... Date: 14-05-2024 Categories: • Community • News |
| ARRS funding can be used to fund DPPs ... hannels of engagement and facilitating partnerships to support integrated clinical pathways for patients. And he confirmed that NHSE funded training for the existing pharmacist workforce to train as independent prescribers would continue this year. Date: 10-05-2024 Categories: • In Practice • News |
| Scottish trade unions get behind pharmacist access to patient records ... d is worse at weekends and holiday periods’, the PDA said. The union raised concerns about how a lack of access to patient records would work with an increasing number of pharmacists qualifying as independent prescribers. ‘Many pharmacists do not have full and proper access to patient records and are being asked to prescribe drugs without the ability to access relevant information about the patient,’ the motion re ... Date: 18-04-2024 Categories: • Community • News |
| RPS and HEIW partner for prescribing training in Wales ... n hoped the programme would ‘improve confidence in prescribing and equity of access to the provision of the PIPS across Wales.’ From 2026, all newly qualified pharmacists across the UK will become independent prescribers at the point of registration. And HEIW has committed to ensuring that all pharmacists in Wales identified as requiring an IP qualification 'have been safely and successfully trained to IP standard ... Date: 09-04-2024 Categories: • Community • News |
| ‘No change’ expected in antibiotic use under Pharmacy First ... ormal evaluation of Pharmacy First would lay the groundwork for an increase in pharmacist prescribing, following pilots currently running across the country. With all new pharmacists graduating as independent prescribers from 2026, ‘starting this process of Pharmacy First with a really formal evaluation will absolutely help us to move on as soon as that happens,’ Dr Doyle said. NHSE, the Department of Health and S ... Date: 27-03-2024 Categories: • Community • In Practice • Pharmacy First |
| Commissioners need to see pharmacy as an ‘investable proposition’, says Wales CPhO ... Mr Evans said. And he added: ‘We wanted a workforce with the skills needed to deliver outstanding pharmaceutical care, and to do that we would offer more opportunities for pharmacists to train as independent prescribers to deliver our independent prescribing service.’ He also stressed the importance of making the most of pharmacy technicians in order to ‘realise the opportunities’ for pharmacists. Community ph ... Date: 01-03-2024 Categories: • Clinical • Community • Ear nose and throat • News |
| Clinical service is the future for community pharmacy, says NHS director ... rt of the offer in the neighbourhood or in the community for people, with some increasingly automated dispensing of tablets on the side.’ Dr Doyle added: ‘In 2026, all graduate pharmacists will be independent prescribers, and that is a game-changer for general practice as well as community pharmacy. ‘We really see community pharmacy as a big part of the future of clinical service provision.’ Date: 29-02-2024 Categories: • Community • News |
| Former health secretary praises ‘sensible approach’ of Pharmacy First ... -term prescribing future of the sector. Shadow pharmacy minister and Labour (Co-op) MP for Birmingham, Edgbaston, Preet Kaur Gill asked what the government’s plan was to ‘integrate the increase in independent prescribers who are being trained as part of the long-term workforce plan’. And she asked whether Dame Andrea agreed ‘that we should be accelerating the roll-out of independent prescribing to establish a comm ... Date: 08-02-2024 Categories: • Community • News • Pharmacy First |
| RPS changes position on prescribing and dispensing separation ... 9 Crown Report. A new position statement has been published, along with supporting professional guidance developed jointly with the Royal College of Nursing (RCN). The statement recognises that independent prescribers across all professions already prescribe and supply or administer medicines for the same patient, and that being unable to do so would potentially have a negative impact on patient experience and car ... Date: 01-02-2024 Categories: • News |
| Keith Ridge: HEIs shouldn’t ‘wash their hands’ of prescribing training responsibilities Former chief pharmaceutical officer (CPhO) for England Keith Ridge has questioned whether the current model of training independent prescribers is fit for purpose, as increasing numbers of pharmacists look to pursue the qualification. Currently, each trainee prescriber must be supervised by a Designated Prescribing Practitioner (DPP), wit ... Date: 14-11-2023 Categories: • Community • In Practice • News |
| CPhO: Pharmacists bring ‘judicious approach’ to medicines prescribing ... medicines prescribing, chief pharmaceutical officer (CPhO) for England David Webb suggested at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s (RPS) Annual Conference last week. With more pharmacists becoming independent prescribers, Mr Webb suggested that the profession could play a role in reducing the overprescribing of medicines. He suggested that pharmacist prescribers ‘collectively bring a judicious approach to the use ... Date: 13-11-2023 Categories: • Community • In Practice • News |
| New trainee funding risks pay below minimum wage, sector warns ... welcomed ‘any increase to funding for trainee pharmacists’, he warned that the rate ‘still undervalues the current role, let alone the situation once those becoming registrants will be trained to be independent prescribers too’. And he told The Pharmacist that funding in England ‘continues to lag behind the other British nations’, with trainee pharmacists in Wales already employed on NHS pay band 5 at £28,407 and th ... Date: 08-11-2023 Categories: • Community • News |
| Pharmacists call for greater awareness following Question Time comment ... red medicines reviews, discussing a patient’s conditions and any issues they might have with medication, Mr Hossain highlighted that many pharmacists working within general practice were qualified as independent prescribers, giving them the clinical background to recommend alternative medications within their scope of practice. While Mr Hossain suggested that the public were generally unaware of the support they coul ... Date: 03-11-2023 Categories: • In Practice • News |
| Independent prescribing training for existing workforce ‘biggest challenge’ for pharmacists Independent prescribing (IP) training for the existing workforce was considered the biggest challenge facing the profession in our exclusive survey of community and practice pharmacists. Respondents were asked what they ... Date: 27-10-2023 Categories: • Community • In Practice • News |
| How ICS leaders can approach community pharmacy ... d to think about? The ambition for community pharmacy, and indeed the wider pharmacy sector, to take on more direct clinical work with patients is clear. From 2026, all pharmacists will qualify as independent prescribers, and will have enhanced clinical, population health and consultation skills. The delivery plan for recovering access to primary care published by NHS England in May 2023 includes a commitment to inve ... Date: 06-10-2023 Categories: • Community • Views |
| Less than half of practice pharmacists have positive inductions, suggests survey ... stment in ‘properly structured supervision, training and support for pharmacists working in practice’. The PDA added that this should include a period of supervised prescribing for newly qualified independent prescribers, or those who have not used their prescribing qualification, ‘based on the model for GP registrars’. And it added that this was ‘particularly important given that soon all newly registered pharmac ... Date: 04-10-2023 Categories: • In Practice • News |
| Views sought on increasing practice pharmacist training placements in Wales ... urses, allied health professionals and other professionals, as well as ‘embedding changes in pharmacy initial education and training requirements’. Other proposals include increasing the number of independent prescribers in primary care across all settings, developing a programme to support professionals supervising others, and increasing the number of apprenticeships in primary health services and expanding the numb ... Date: 04-10-2023 Categories: • In Practice • News |
| Government urged to close funding gap for pharmacy students ... al support for travel and accommodation for pharmacy students on clinical placements would be a positive first step.’ The letter also points out that from 2026, all new pharmacists will qualify as independent prescribers, and that the NHS estimates that education and training places for pharmacists need to grow by 31% to 55% to meet the demand for pharmacy services. Tase Oputu, RPS England chair, said: ‘As pharmac ... Date: 27-09-2023 Categories: • Community • In Practice • News |
| Exclusive: Scotland’s pharmacotherapy service needs long-term workforce planning ... patients and helping them with issues around their medicines, which I think will be invaluable’. And Ms Wilson described the change in pharmacy training that will see all pharmacists qualifying as independent prescribers at the point of registration from 2026 as ‘a game changer for patient care’. ‘It will be a really big benefit to the healthcare system that we have in this cohort of prescribers [that are] ready t ... Date: 20-09-2023 Categories: • In Practice • News |
| Include pharmacists as health professionals, creators tell YouTube ... ncerning medical conditions and medications, which could be invaluable to the public,’ he noted. ‘Considering there are over 60,000 registered pharmacists in the UK—with all new graduates becoming independent prescribers from 2026 onwards—our role in online healthcare education could be monumental.’ Mr Sacranie’s MicroPharm YouTube channel has amassed over one million views, and is followed by 136,000 people acros ... Date: 13-09-2023 Categories: • Community • In Practice • News |
| Latest NHS community pharmacist figures ‘may be overestimated’ ... services in community pharmacy, which it said would incentivise businesses to invest in upskilling its workforce. This comes as the NHS workforce survey suggested that the proportion of pharmacist independent prescribers using their qualification in a community setting decreased from 25% in 2021 to just 17% in 2022. In particular, it said that setting out a clear role for pharmacist prescribers in community pharma ... Date: 06-09-2023 Categories: • Community • News |
| Funded training for prescribing supervisors launched independent prescribers can learn how to supervise prescribing training through a funded programme launching in England next month. There are 500 places available for pharmacy staff to train as Designated Prescribing Pra ... Date: 30-08-2023 Categories: • News |
| New training for pharmacy technicians to launch in September ... macy technicians to apply for new fully funded training launching in September. The training aims to enable community pharmacy technicians to take on responsibility while more pharmacists train as independent prescribers. Pharmacy technicians will be trained in consultation skills, therapeutics, clinical decision making and assessment skills as well as service improvement. The training will be delivered online, ... Date: 16-08-2023 Categories: • News |
| NHSE ‘monitoring’ availability of IP training places ... The 2022 NHSE community pharmacy workforce survey, the results of which were published this week, found that between autumn 2021 and autumn 2022, there was a 37% increase in the reported number of independent prescribers (IPs) working in community pharmacy. But Malcolm Harrison, chief executive of the Company Chemists’ Association, raised concerns that the 37% increase in the number of IPs 'does not reflect the wh ... Date: 04-08-2023 Categories: • News |
| Total community pharmacy workforce drops 6% in a year ... d working fewer hours on average. And between autumn 2021, when the last survey was conducted, and autumn 2022, of which these results are based, there was a 37% increase in the reported number of independent prescribers (IPs) working in community pharmacy. Across all roles combined, the survey showed a 6% decrease in the community pharmacy workforce, with the number of FTE pharmacists working in community pharmac ... Date: 03-08-2023 Categories: • News |
| CCA calls for ‘new framework’ on supervision ... tioners (DPPs), ‘there is a risk that lack of supervision will inhibit the roll out of changes to pharmacy education’. Under current plans, it will take until 2040 to train the entire workforce as independent prescribers, the CCA suggested. To ‘capitalise on the opportunities that IP bring’ the CCA said 95% of community pharmacists should be trained as IPs by 2030, and that ‘the government and employers should tak ... Date: 24-07-2023 Categories: • News |
| NPA sets out 10-year vision for community pharmacy ... des the proposal of a national travel vaccinations service through community pharmacy, commissioning of community pharmacy to support medicines adherence in care home settings and allowing pharmacist independent prescribers to adjust prescriptions as part of an expanded new medicines service. But to support this, the NPA said that ‘urgent action’ on funding was needed ‘to maintain current services and lay the ground ... Date: 13-07-2023 Categories: • News |
| NHS needs to ‘get serious’ on prescriber training The NHS needs to ‘get serious’ about how it is going to train up pharmacist independent prescribers, Company Chemists’ Association (CCA) chief executive Malcolm Harrison has said. ‘At the current rate of developing the existing workforce into prescribers, it'll be 2040 before we have enough. It' ... Date: 13-07-2023 Categories: • News |
| Claire Anderson re-elected as RPS president ... tough decisions that we will inevitably face’. She pointed to several changes facing pharmacy, including: the transformation of pharmacy education and the increase in the number of pharmacist independent prescribers the implementation of the recommendations of the independent commission into Pharmacy Professional Leadership changes to supervision, as the government prepares to reform legislation and discus ... Date: 11-07-2023 Categories: • News |
| Pharmacy training places must be matched by practical experience ... PPs). Tase Oputu, chair of the England Pharmacy Board at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) said that ‘with pharmacists delivering more clinical services and with growing numbers of pharmacist independent prescribers’, it was ‘encouraging to see the plan commit to investing in pharmacy education and training’. But she said that pharmacy teams were ‘under enormous pressure’, and that ‘if we want to recruit and ... Date: 30-06-2023 Categories: • News |
| Set out vision for prescribing in community, government urged ... nvesting in a more ambitious Pharmacy First service, the Company Chemists’ Association (CCA) has urged. The CCA said that the incoming national Pharmacy First service should make use of pharmacist independent prescribers (PIPs) ‘immediately’, and that the government must set out a clear role for the future of PIPs in clinical services so that businesses can be incentivised to train the workforce. The CCA also warn ... Date: 13-06-2023 Categories: • News |
| Pharmacists must assess their fitness to practise risk, PDA warns ... e pharmacies and other settings should assess their fitness to practise risk, the Pharmacists’ Defence Association (PDA) has warned. This follows an increase in incidents reported among pharmacist independent prescribers (PIPs) working in online pharmacies, as well as an ‘expected upturn in incidents linked to general practice work as the practice pharmacist workforce increases’, the PDA said. Pharmacists should e ... Date: 07-06-2023 Categories: • News |
| Dr Bruce Warner retires as deputy CPhO ... macists would begin to have ‘portfolio careers’ across general practice and community settings, and added that work needed to be done to make the community pharmacy sector a more attractive place for independent prescribers (IPs) to work. And he emphasised the need to train the current workforce as IPs in order to ‘guard against a two-tier service’ where newly registered pharmacists graduate as prescribers but curren ... Date: 31-05-2023 Categories: • News |
| Pharmacy bodies join call for publication of NHS workforce plan ... s,’ she said. She noted that when the RPS met with NHS England in January, ‘pharmacy leaders called for the plan to include the whole of pharmacy and to recognise the increasing role of pharmacist independent prescribers in our health service’. ‘With teams under pressure across the system, this workforce plan also needs to support staff retention, secure protected time for learning and development, and ensure cont ... Date: 31-05-2023 Categories: • News |
| Labour pledges to ‘go further’ than current community pharmacy proposals ... once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for change’, he said. Mr Harrison said that under current plans it would take ‘far too long’ to achieve the CCA’s ambition of 95% of community pharmacists trained as independent prescribers, from just 5% at present. But he said that with ‘ambitious commissioning and an expanded training programme’, community pharmacy could ‘transform urgent care, public health, and long-term conditio ... Date: 23-05-2023 Categories: • News |
| Good integration of practice-based pharmacists but more work needed, suggests study ... ity to work with the community sector. And they said that working in general practice gave them more opportunities to develop and acquire new skills. Many GPs and PBPs said that where PBPs were independent prescribers, this saved GP time and gave PBPs greater clinical confidence and experience. And GPs said that PBPs freed them up to spend more time with patients, resulting in better patient care. GPs also s ... Date: 17-05-2023 Categories: • News |
| ‘We are working in an environment that is setting us up to fail’ ... ime for it at all, is normally nothing to shout about (indeed, we are normally being shouted at by patients for daring to have lunch). There is also no protected learning time or support to become independent prescribers, though we are expected to find the time to do this, as well as to find supervisors - some of whom are charging a hefty fee. Don’t get me started on the numerous hours of personal time doing training ... Date: 20-04-2023 Categories: • Opinion |
| Community pharmacy prevented 600 heart attacks and strokes in a year, says CCA ... eving some of the immense pressure on GPs,’ he said. The CCA also said that developing the hypertension service in community pharmacy would provide clinical roles in the sector for newly qualified independent prescribers (IPs) to use their skills. Last month, Health and Social Care Select Committee chair Steve Brine emphasised the importance of developing opportunities for pharmacist prescribers to use their clini ... Date: 19-04-2023 Categories: • Cardiovascular • Clinical • News |
| Pharmacist in practice: Having an ‘interface pharmacist’ would support integration ... ry well taken care of, because they can see that everyone's speaking to each other – perhaps something that I don't think happens too much across primary and secondary care. With everyone becoming independent prescribers in a few years’ time, do you think changes need to be made? I think this is the big question mark. I do the occasional locum shift for community pharmacy. We sometimes get CPCS referrals, and of c ... Date: 12-04-2023 Categories: • In Practice • Interviews |
| Developing a pathway for support and CPD for non-medical prescribers ... ice for others wanting to change workplace culture. Primary care has the highest proportion of independent or non-medical prescribers (NMPs) in the UK.1 About 14,000 pharmacists are registered as independent prescribers, with around 6,000 of these working in primary care and community pharmacy, and plans to grow this workforce as we move towards registration as an IP on qualification from 2026.2 Yet there is often ... Date: 05-04-2023 Categories: • Analysis • News |
| ICB changes could bring a more coordinated approach to medicines optimisation ... Rule highlighted the potential for community pharmacists to take a more integrated and ambitious role in medicines management and deprescribing, especially with the workforce increasing its number of independent prescribers. ‘We have the opportunity to give them a greater stake in our system, greater input into decision making, and to take the opportunity that community pharmacy can offer us to take a whole pathway a ... Date: 29-03-2023 Categories: • News |
| House of Lords remarks ‘a new low for government’ ... that is unfolding in community pharmacy'. She told The Pharmacist: 'Pharmacies are not currently funded to offer a comprehensive service that treats a host of minor ailments and utilises PGDs and independent prescribers to their full capacity.' She added that while Lord Evans was right to say that the government had introduced a range of new services, 'the responses don’t address the fact that they are not paying ... Date: 23-03-2023 Categories: • News |
| Registration open for clinical skills training ... n the HEE website. Last August, the deputy chief pharmaceutical officer for England spoke about the need to guard against a ‘two-tier’ profession with all newly qualified pharmacists graduating as independent prescribers from 2026. Date: 17-03-2023 Categories: • News |
| VAT changes will level the playing field for commissioned services ... d become VAT-exempt from this autumn, in line with medicines supplied under prescriptions. Currently, only medicines that are prescribed by a ‘relevant practitioner’ – including GPs and pharmacist independent prescribers – are exempt from VAT. Mr Harrison said that this made commissioning the supply of medicines under a PGD – such as flu jabs and antibiotics – ‘less attractive for the commissioner because they know t ... Date: 16-03-2023 Categories: • News |
| Embedding pharmacist in care homes makes them safer for residents ... effects. Through interviews with GPs, care home managers, carers and residents, the researchers established that all participants were highly satisfied with the service provided by the pharmacist independent prescribers within the care homes. The intervention appeared most effective when the pharmacists were embedded within their local general practice and led to a reduction of GP workloads since pharmacist presc ... Date: 23-02-2023 Categories: • Clinical • News |
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