Lack of funding for independent prescribing would be a ‘first class burial’ for the sector

If independent prescribing is not embedded into the next pharmacy contract, it will be a ‘first class burial for our sector’ said chair of the National Pharmacy Association (NPA), Olivier Picard.

Mr Picard, speaking at the Sigma UK Conference, was addressing the fact that pharmacists in Scotland and Wales are ahead of England when it comes to independent prescribing.

For example, Scotland has a Pharmacy First Plus service – an independent prescriber-led clinical service – and a large proportion of Welsh pharmacists are already independent prescribers.

He said: ‘The reason it’s not happening in England is because of other healthcare professionals. They don’t respect us, they don’t trust us, and they don’t think we are able to do the job.

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‘Yet when the same set of pharmacists are working in their healthcare settings – surgeries and hospitals – then it is perfectly acceptable, and the healthcare professionals are all in on it.’

He reminded the audience that, as of September 2026, all new pharmacists will be independent prescribers (IPs), and the Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (CPCF) should recognise and support this move.

Mr Picard said: ‘My plea is to make sure that, when we negotiate about the next distribution of money, some of it goes to independent prescribing.’

If he was on the Community Pharmacy England (CPE) committee, he added, he would not accept a deal that excludes it. ‘The funding needs to redistributed and spent differently. If we can make that happen, even in a small way, it will be a huge leap for the profession.’

Henry Gregg, NPA chief executive, saw no reason why community pharmacy couldn’t support independent prescribing in England, and added that the change to pharmacy education was a ‘once in a generation’ opportunity for the sector.

However, this is only possible with funding he added. ‘I asked Wes Streeting directly what plans he has got in place for independent prescribing and a national prescribing service.

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‘He talked about the role of community pharmacy in delivering independent prescribing but nothing about the actual money that’s going to pay for it.’

In August 2023, the government launched a pathfinder project to test how different models of pharmacist independent prescribing could work, and made available a share of £12m funding for up to 210 community pharmacies.

A year later, NHS England rolled out a system enabling pathfinders to ‘start delivering their clinical services’, including giving community pharmacists the ability to generate prescriptions.

By May, the community pharmacist prescribing pathfinders had delivered more than 17,000 consultations, with more than 600 medicines stopped, 2,000 changed, and more than 800 new medicines started.

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NHS England recently announced that it will consult with the pharmacy negotiator on a national community pharmacy prescribing service from April 2026. The news comes within a letter from NHSE to integrated care boards (ICBs) around the next steps for the community pharmacy pathfinder programme, which is due to come to a formal end on 31 December 2025.

The Pharmacist editor, Victoria Vaughan, recently discussed the issues around this move with course leaders from across the UK.