Slow progress on the community pharmacy prescribing pathfinder project has sparked concerns that a viable commissioned community pharmacy prescribing service will not be ready by 2026, The Pharmacist has learned.

Company Chemists' Association (CCA) chief executive Malcolm Harrison told The Pharmacist that while the new digital prescribing solution was ‘good news’, the CCA was still concerned about the future of the service.

He stressed that independent prescribing 'will be central to the future of the profession' and that community pharmacy prescribing services must be commissioned before autumn 2026, when all new registrants will qualify as prescribers.

'Without this, there is a risk of new skills being lost through lack of use,' said Mr Harrison.

In August 2023, the government launched a pathfinder project to test how different models of pharmacist independent prescribing could work, backed by £12m funding.

And in August 2024, NHS England announced it was rolling out a national clinical system that would allow community pharmacists to generate prescriptions via the NHS Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) and enable pathfinder sites to 'start delivering their clinical services'.

‘Whilst we welcome this latest development, we are still concerned that at the current rate of progress, this deadline won’t be met,' Mr Harrison told The Pharmacist.

‘A nationally commissioned independent prescribing service is needed as soon as possible not only to improve patient care but also to harness the full potential of community pharmacy.’

Separately, a spokesperson for the CCA told The Pharmacist 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, the spokesperson said.

Although the Labour government has promised a Community Pharmacist Prescribing service, the CCA spokesperson said that the sector had ‘no indication that anything is going to be commissioned’ in time for the current workforce, trainees or new prescribers from 2026.

The launch of a digital prescribing solution comes a year after the launch of the pathfinder project, with funding for the project only guaranteed for another seven months until March 2025.

The CCA spokesperson suggested that once pathfinder sites had been trained on and implemented the new IT prescribing system, there would be less than six months of the project left before funding runs out.

It would therefore be difficult for the NHS to be able to gather any meaningful data to evaluate the project in such a short time, the spokesperson told The Pharmacist.

And they suggested that the government could commission a ‘Pharmacy First Plus’ style prescribing service in the first instance, rather than some of the more novel approaches currently being explored under the pathfinder.

Another contractor, who wanted to remain anonymous, said they thought this approach would also help the sector ease into delivering a prescribing service, building on skills and clinical areas they were already familiar with.

The Pharmacist has approached the government and NHS England for comment.