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The locations of all community pharmacy independent prescribing pathfinder sites and their clinical areas of focus can be exclusively revealed by The Pharmaceutical Journal.
Data obtained by The Pharmaceutical Journal through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to NHS England show that more than two-thirds (69%; n=133) of the sites have been focused on minor ailments, while almost half (43%; n=83) have explored how community pharmacy prescribing could be used in hypertension management.
The data also show that one-fifth (21%; n=40) of sites have been exploring or may explore prescription management and 14% (n=27) are looking at prescribing contraception, while 13% (n=33) have explored or may explore respiratory conditions.
The FOI data revealed that 8 pharmacies (4%) have considered how they could prescribe in women’s health; 7 pharmacies (4%) are looking at how community pharmacies could deprescribe medication; 3 pharmacies (2%) are working on how community pharmacy prescribing could help achieve the health; and 3 pharmacies (2%) have looked at or may look at depression management.
The pathfinder sites launched in 2024 and are aimed to test the delivery of pharmacist independent prescribing in certain clinical areas.
According to slides shared by Wasim Baqir, head of pharmacy integration at NHS England, at the Clinical Pharmacy Congress (CPC) North in Manchester on 21 November 2025, 45,656 consultations had been conducted within the pathfinder programme so far.
“We’ve had a phenomenal response to the pathfinder programme,” he told delegates.
In 41% of consultations (n=18,664), new medicines were prescribed, which Baqir said “would have been otherwise prescribed by a GP”.
“Just imagine that for a second you come into pharmacy, have a consultation, but we can’t give you the medicine. So you then go back to a GP who has the same consultation more or less, and then you get the medicine,” Baqir explained.
“So this is good for patients, good for GPs, good for pharmacists,” he added.
Medicines were changed following 10% of the consultations (n=4,745), and medicines were stopped following 3% (n=1,266) of consultations.
By August 2025, 12,597 items had been prescribed by pathfinders across most British National Formulary categories, with infection, ear nose and throat, skin, cardiovascular and central nervous system drugs the most popular categories.
National funding for the pathfinder programme will stop the end of 2025 and, in October 2025, NHS England asked local integrated care boards to consider continuing local projects where they can.
Speaking at CPC North, Baqir said the team at NHS England were “thinking hard” and “working hard” to see what national and local services could look like and how community pharmacy prescribing could be used within local neighbourhoods.
“That’s a really exciting space. But to do that, we need to get the building blocks right. And the pathfinding program has shown us what those building blocks are.”
He added that NHS England was working on electronic prescribing systems and considering what changes might need to be made to payments and Pharmacy First to incorporate prescribing.
“Professional assurance is really important, because we’ve got to look after people, and we’ve got to make sure that people who are given the responsibility to prescribe have the correct wraparound support,” he said.
An evaluation of the programme has been undertaken by the University of Manchester, but this is yet to be published by NHS England.
Also speaking at CPC North, Ellen Schafheutle, professor of pharmacy policy and practice at the centre for Pharmacy Workforce Studies at the University of Manchester, shared some information about its evaluation of the programme, yet to be published by NHS England.
She explained how the university carried out 110 interviews across 39 of 42 integrated care boards (ICBs), with stakeholders including ICB leads, prescribing pharmacists and GPs.
The evaluation also involved engaging with representatives from chain pharmacies as well as sites that had withdrawn from the programme.
Researchers also undertook ten in-depth case studies, including interviews with pharmacy team members and other stakeholders and observations within the pharmacy setting.
“Skill mix in the community pharmacy was also very important to actually release the independent prescribing pharmacist to be able to run their clinics,” Schafheutle told delegates.
“Many of the pharmacies actually run a two-pharmacist model in order to be able to safely and effectively deliver IP but there were also examples where actually the pharmacy team was scaled up [in a] range of different skills to be able to release the pharmacist to run their clinics,” she added.
In October 2025, speaking at The Pharmacy Show, Baqir revealed that almost two-thirds (60%) of consultations delivered under the pathfinder programme have been for minor ailments.
The pathfinder sites were announced in 2022, when the Pharmaceutical Journal exclusively revealed that every region of England would test NHS-funded pharmacist prescribing services based in community pharmacies.
The pilot sites were set to begin in 2023 but the first site did not go live until late 2024, after a bespoke prescribing IT system was developed for the project.
