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The electronic prescribing system for the Independent Prescribing in Community Pharmacy Pathfinder Programme is set to be launched in all ‘pathfinder’ sites across England, NHS England has said.
In a letter to chief pharmacists at integrated care boards (ICBs), dated 29 August 2024, NHS England confirmed that the CLEO SOLO system from Cleo Systems “can now start to roll out” in community pharmacy pathfinder sites “so they can start delivering their clinical services”.
“We have notified ICB community pharmacy leads of this development and will be working with them regarding the next steps of the CLEO SOLO rollout, including a series of webinars with ICBs,” it added.
Under the programme, 210 community pharmacies across all 42 integrated care boards in England will trial independent prescribing for a range of conditions, including minor illnesses and long-term conditions, as part of a locally-commissioned — but nationally funded — clinical service.
It aims to explore how community pharmacists can deliver independent prescribing across all regions of England, ahead of establishing a national commissioning framework for the service, which was originally scheduled for March 2024.
NHS England said it had transferred funding to ICBs “to support project management, clinical supervision and local evaluation” in June 2024 and that it had asked ICBs “to provide support and leadership to pathfinder sites over the course of the programme (to March 2025)”.
“Our evaluation partners (University of Manchester and ICF International) are working with regions, ICBs and the national team to ensure there is a robust independent evaluation from the programme.
“This will help us develop a framework which will support the commissioning of independent prescribing as part of clinical services in community pharmacy in the future.”
The ‘pathfinder site’ pharmacies taking part in the scheme were originally planned to launch in January 2023, but have faced complications owing to issues with funding and implementation.
In February 2024, a spokesperson for NHS England told The Pharmaceutical Journal that work was still ongoing to implement IT systems to “ensure they work effectively with existing systems”.
At the time, a spokesperson for IT provider Cleo Systems told The Pharmaceutical Journal that the EPS for the pathfinder programme should be ready by spring 2024.
A slide presented by Wasim Baqir, senior pharmacist for the pharmacy integration fund at NHS England, at the Clinical Pharmacy Congress in May 2024 showed that 14 pathfinder sites had gone live prior to the electronic prescribing system being ready.
Commenting on the IT rollout, Danny Bartlett, lead pharmacist at Horsham Central Primary Care Network and member of the English Pharmacy Board at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, said: “I think the CLEO system is going to be a revelation in the ability for community pharmacists to not only prescribe and issue medications electronically, but also improve their clinical autonomy and link up with the rest of primary care.
“Ultimately, community pharmacy is a vital part of primary care, and reducing the barriers in terms of IT systems between both general practice and community pharmacy, as well as the prescription service, is only going to benefit patients.
“It will improve access, enhance the autonomy of community pharmacists, and I also believe it will strengthen the sector as a whole,” he said.
Stephen Noble, chief executive of Community Pharmacy Dudley, said: “This is good news. It’s really what we’ve been waiting for … so we’ll look forward to that [rollout].
“One of the concerns that I’ve got is that we’re going to have all these wonderfully trained people, and they’re not going to want to go into community pharmacy unless there’s some opportunity for them to run some type of a clinic.”
But he added: “Anything coming out of NHS is good … and obviously, we’ve got about a year to start thinking about it.”
The NHS announcement included that prescribing models for the programme will fall into three broad categories.
These include existing community pharmacy commissioned services (such as acute minor illness and contraception), long-term conditions (such as prescribing for cardiovascular disease and respiratory disease), and novel services (such as deprescribing, reviewing antidepressants and menopause services).
Work is also underway to nationally procure a clinical system, which will allow community pharmacists to generate prescriptions via the NHS electronic prescribing prescription service.
