Around 8% of community pharmacists in England were qualified as independent prescribers (IPs) in 2023, an NHS England workforce survey has suggested.

In 2023, around 2,217 community pharmacists were IP qualified, or around 8% of the total community pharmacist workforce - an estimated 27,485, according to the latest data from the Community Pharmacy Workforce survey.

This was an increase of 641 pharmacist prescribers working in community pharmacy since the previous year, when around 1576 prescribers made up around 4% of the total 27,710 pharmacists working in community pharmacy in 2022.

However, NHSE noted that there may be some double-counting - for instance, locum pharmacists working in multiple settings may have been counted more than once, since the survey was completed by contractors and reflects the staffing model for a typical week.

Meanwhile, just 10% of pharmacies nationally were making use of independent prescribing through either private or commissioned services in 2023, the survey found.

'Paucity' of prescribing opportunities in community, says PDA

Alison Jones, director of policy and communications at the Pharmacists' Defence Association (PDA), described the workforce survey figures on prescribers as 'interesting', but noted that the data 'is from responses given two years ago, and with funded training places for IP being made available to existing pharmacists we would expect this number to have increased'.

'However, in England there is a paucity of opportunities to practice as an IP in community pharmacy, and this may have resulted in people who have qualified as an IP to seek roles elsewhere, such as in other parts of the NHS,' she said.

'Many pharmacists also tell us that they have to take on training in their own time, which is an obstacle to them expanding their knowledge and practice. A universal policy of supporting protected learning time would facilitate more pharmacists being able to undertake post registration qualifications, such as IP.'

Concerns around DPPs 'yet to be addressed'

And Malcolm Harrison, chief executive of the Company Chemists' Association, commented: 'As we have said before, the pharmacy workforce crisis is inhibiting the sector’s ability to deliver more for patients and the NHS.

'The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan set out plans to increase the size of the pharmacist workforce. Over a year later, we have yet to see detail on how this will be delivered. Moreover, our concerns regarding the supply of Designated Prescribing Practitioners (DPPs) have yet to be addressed.'

The CCA has previously raised concerns that a lack of prescribing opportunities in community pharmacy meant that many current prescribers were either not using – and therefore risking losing – their skills, or choosing to work elsewhere.

This was impacting the availability of designated prescribing practitioners (DPPs) for pharmacist trainees doing their foundation year in 2025/26, when they would need to undertake a prescribing placement, a CCA spokesperson previously told The Pharmacist.

CPE warns of 'big issue' around training current workforce

Speaking at the Sigma Heathrow conference yesterday (6 October), the chief executive of Community Pharmacy England (CPE), acknowledged the 'really big issue about making sure we can bring all the profession on board' with prescribing.

Janet Morrison warned that if 'sufficient [prescribing] services and capability' weren't commissioned in community pharmacy, the sector would be unable to 'offer a really meaningful role for independent prescribers'.

Community pharmacy would then risk losing pharmacist prescribers to other settings such as general practice which would be 'a real lost opportunity', Ms Morrison said at the conference.

She added that contractors needed to be able to plan ahead for when newly registered pharmacists enter the workforce as prescribers from 2026.

Ms Morrison highlighted that the Labour government had committed in its manifesto to a community pharmacist prescribing service.

'Department of Health and NHS England [are] already thinking about, what will that look like? What could that be, provided we get the right investment in place?' Ms Morrison said.

'Disappointing' progress on developing prescribing services in community

But she added that slow progress on the development of prescribing services through the NHSE pathfinder project was 'disappointing'.

She suggested that within some areas of the pathfinder project funding was being spent on those within NHSE 'trying to run the scheme' rather than 'actual IP services'.

She told delegates that career pathways and support for prescribers needed to be developed.

'Most importantly... we need to have the clinical services that are commissioned that make best use of independent prescribers,' Ms Morrison said.

'We absolutely want to be able to build those clinical services, to say: "this is the exciting thing you can do as a career path in the community, face to face with patients who need the service, not stuck away in the back room in a GP surgery". We need to be able to offer that,' Ms Morrison said.

Need to balance new services with 'keeping the lights on'

But she said the negotiator was faced with a 'balancing act' to simultaneously ask the government 'to pay for what we're already being asked to do'.

'So I have to say: "this is what you could have, but only if we can keep the lights on, because all of this will be academic if we can't pay the bills, pay our staff and we're out of business",' Ms Morrison said.

And she suggested the negotiator would seek to build on the expected NHS 10-year plan to talk to government about 'what a community pharmacist prescribing service looks like' if the sector could be 'stabilised, if we can keep our doors open'.

'There's lots of work to be done over the autumn and into the new year, to work with the government, hopefully in a productive way, to have a way forwards for the sector,' she added.

Government commits to 'accelerating the rollout of independent prescribing'

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: 'This government inherited a broken NHS where pharmacies have been neglected for years.

'Pharmacies are key to making healthcare fit for the future as we shift the focus of the NHS out of hospitals and into the community. We will make better use of pharmacists’ skills, including accelerating the rollout of independent prescribing to improve access to care.'