Patient safety must keep pace with expanding clinical scope

The Royal College of Pharmacy will be established as a registered charity with a clear purpose: putting patients and the public at the heart of everything we do. That is not a slogan. It is a legal and professional commitment written into the College’s charter objects and its charitable status. The question for those of us seeking election is how we ensure the College lives up to it in practice, across every setting in which pharmacy is delivered.

Pharmacists across community, hospital and primary care settings share the same fundamental purpose, but they do not yet share the same governance infrastructure to support safe practice as their clinical scope expands. The College’s charitable object — and its mission to put pharmacy at the forefront of patient care — encompasses every part of that picture equally.

What concerns me is the pace at which clinical responsibility is expanding relative to the governance frameworks that should support it. From September 2026, all newly qualifying pharmacists will register as independent prescribers. Clinical services in community and primary care continue to grow. These are welcome developments. But in my experience, supervision arrangements for newly qualified prescribers already vary considerably between employer types and settings, and the governance frameworks to assure consistent competency across those settings are not yet fully in place. For patient benefit to be real rather than assumed, the College must ensure that consistent, sector-appropriate governance standards exist to support practitioners wherever they work.

This is not a criticism of individual practitioners. It is a recognition that the College — as a standard-setting chartered body — has a specific responsibility that flows directly from its charitable objects. Patients deserve consistent, high-quality care, regardless of which part of the pharmacy system they access. That requires governance frameworks that work across settings, not only in those where infrastructure is most developed.

In my work within NHS England’s Transformation Directorate, I see how national policy intentions can fail to translate into safe, consistent practice without robust local governance and clear professional standards. Returning to community pharmacy practice alongside that national work makes this gap visible in both directions. That gap is the College’s opportunity — and its obligation.

Patients are not a backdrop to pharmacy’s professional development. They are its purpose. The College’s charitable status should remind us of that every time we make a decision.

Darren Powell

Candidate for the inaugural elections to the English Pharmacy Advisory Council