Medications used to treat depression will be added to the New Medicine Service (NMS) from October 2025.

The move was announced on Monday as part of the community pharmacy contractual framework for 2025/26.

A training module is available to support pharmacists in consultations with people with mental health problems, although it is not mandatory.

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But if all pharmacists within the pharmacy have undertaken the Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE) Consulting with people with mental health problems online training, then the pharmacy is eligible for a payment under the Pharmacy Quality Scheme (PQS).

What is the NMS?

This advanced (opt-in) national service sees community pharmacists in England commissioned to support patients with medicines adherence.

It already applies to medication for several long-term conditions, including:

  • asthma and COPD
  • diabetes (Type 2)
  • hypertension
  • epilepsy
  • Parkinson’s disease
  • heart failure
  • atrial fibrillation

And from October 2025, the NMS will also cover medications used to treat depression.

'Pharmacists have been calling for antidepressants to be included since NMS started'

Ahead of Monday's announcement, Community Pharmacy England (CPE) director of NHS services Alastair Buxton told press that adding depression medication to the NMS had been a 'long-term objective of the profession’ for many years.

‘Pharmacists have been calling for SSRI [selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors] antidepressants to be added to the NMS since the NMS started in 2012,' he said.

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'SSRIs and other antidepressants are a beautiful example of medicines where people get side effects to begin with and don't get the benefits of the medicines immediately, and people need to stick with them and adhere to the medicines, which is, of course, at the heart of what the New Medicine Service seeks to achieve in terms of increasing adherence to medicines for long term conditions,' he added.

‘[This] then has a major impact at an individual level, positively for the individual patient, but then has massive health economic benefits for the NHS and the state overall,' Mr Buxton said.

What training will pharmacists get to deliver antidepressant NMS consultations?

Mr Buxton stressed that community pharmacists already had a lot of therapeutic knowledge around antidepressants through 'dispensing lots of these medicines and giving advice to these patients'.

He added that the Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE) training module was focused on 'softer skills', such as 'dealing with patients' and 'being aware of where else you can refer people to'.

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'The first line preferred treatment for depression is talking therapies, but they're not always immediately available to patients, so sometimes an antidepressant prescription is what's required in the meantime,' he explained.

'We think that the training programme will help people cover off some of the soft skills, and we know a lot of people have done that one already.'