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The next Welsh government must accelerate digital access for community pharmacies, the Company Chemists’ Association (CCA) has urged.
In a manifesto published on 25 February 2026 — ahead of elections to the Senedd, which are due to take place in May 2026 — the CCA praised “the ambitious role envisaged of community pharmacy” in Wales but said a lack of access to digital systems was “limiting pharmacies’ capacity to deliver more care”.
It added: “Currently, pharmacy teams must use different platforms for various services, including the Choose Pharmacy platform to log a patient consultation, update the patient medical record used to dispense and supply medicines, and claim via a separate online portal.
“All of this creates an administrative burden, limiting pharmacies’ capacity to deliver more care.”
According to figures shared by the Welsh government and highlighted by the CCA, pharmacies in Wales delivered more than 400,000 consultations for minor conditions under the common ailments service in 2024.
By January 2025, the data show that one-third of all Welsh pharmacies were offered an NHS independent prescribing service.
The CCA manifesto said that data detailing community pharmacy service uptake and performance “should be proactively shared and publicised” in order to “help drive further service improvements, fostering a culture of continuous improvement”.
However, to give pharmacies the tools they require to meet patient need, the next Welsh government must roll out and accelerate digital changes, the CCA stressed.
“This should include moving all health and care data into the National Data Resource (NDR) to create a single national clinical data repository, improving interoperability of systems, and developing standards to receive and send digital referrals across the NHS.
“Taken together, these measures will ensure vital information is readily available to support pharmacies to meet patient need”, the manifesto added.
On 3 February 2026, a coroner in South Wales expressed concern over Welsh community pharmacists’ “limited” access to patient records, following the death of a patient whose pharmacists were unaware of her medication history.
Lyn Maher, aged 79 years, died from causes including statin-induced rhabdomyolysis after being prescribed both clarithromycin and simvastatin.
The coroner highlighted that if either of the community pharmacists who dispensed the drugs had access to Maher’s drug history, “they would have noted the contraindication and either told Lyn, her representative or written on the pharmacy bag that she was to stop the simvastatin”.
“This likely would have changed the outcome for Lyn,” she said.
