{"id":682965,"date":"2026-06-04T01:57:28","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T01:57:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/682965\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T01:57:28","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T01:57:28","slug":"pharmacies-in-england-to-prescribe-more-medication-from-autumn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/682965\/","title":{"rendered":"Pharmacies in England to prescribe more medication from autumn"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pharmacy First scheme in England was first launched in 2024<\/a>, and allows patients to see their pharmacist for advice, over-the-counter treatments and prescription-only medicines. <\/p>\n

People can also visit the pharmacy for eye, ear, oral and dental care, as well as seek treatment for digestive problems.<\/p>\n

Thousands more newly qualified pharmacists with prescribing qualifications will enter the sector from the autumn. They will be the first cohort to be trained with prescribing as part of their pharmacy qualifications. They will be expected to help broaden and improve the Pharmacy First scheme.<\/p>\n

According to the Department of Health and Social Care, more than 3.3 million consultations under the scheme were carried out between March 2025 and February 2026. <\/p>\n

Health Minister Stephen Kinnock said the government is “making the most of our highly skilled pharmacists, while boosting access to services and giving patients more care right on their doorstep”.<\/p>\n

“Independent prescribing will play a major part in delivering this shift, easing pressures on GPs, cutting unnecessary red tape and helping patients get the right care closer to home,” he said.<\/p>\n

The NPA said that while the deal “points in the right direction”, it did not address the “crippling” new costs hitting pharmacies. <\/p>\n

“We remain concerned that it does very little to close the \u00a32.5bn funding gap that the NHS itself identified a year ago,” said NPA chairman Dr Olivier Picard, adding that the expanded scheme was “nowhere near ambitious enough to transform patient access to care, nor make full use of pharmacists’ skills”.<\/p>\n

He went on: “We are also concerned that the current funding levels mean that many pharmacies will struggle to take this development forwards, risking its success. Pharmacies cannot sustain yet more loss-making work.”<\/p>\n

Dr Leyla Hannbeck, chief executive of the Independent Pharmacies Association, which represents about 5,000 pharmacies across England and Wales, said that while the changes are “a step in the right direction”, the “funding on offer doesn’t cover the workload to do this”.<\/p>\n

“Many pharmacists will find themselves in a situation where they’re really thinking about whether they can keep their heads above the water,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.<\/p>\n

Scotland has a scheme which was seen as the model for England’s Pharmacy First – Northern Ireland and Wales also have systems allowing pharmacies to treat patients with certain conditions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pharmacy First scheme in England was first launched in 2024, and allows patients to see their pharmacist…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":682966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[97,243],"class_list":["post-682965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-health","tag-medication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=682965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}