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Pharmacists in Leeds are set to prescribe smoking cessation medication under a patient group directive (PGD) to address the local area’s lack of access to the drugs.
Leeds City Council is commissioning pharmacists to prescribe varenicline and cytisinicline to smokers looking to quit, with a target start of May 2026, The Pharmaceutical Journal has been told.
Varenicline, a nicotine receptor partial agonist taken as a pill, was withdrawn from UK use in 2021, following concerns over the presence of probable carcinogens, but reintroduced in November 2024.
Cytisinicline, which has a similar mechanism to varenicline, has been added to National Institute for Health and Care Excellence stop-smoking guidelines, following a consultation held in 2024.
Community Pharmacy West Yorkshire (CPWY) — which is leading the negotiations on the development of the service — told The Pharmaceutical Journal that the aim was to address lack of local access to the medications.
Currently, prescribing services for varenicline and cytisinicline fall under the remit of local authorities, rather than GPs. In addition, a variability in local commissioning has given rise to reports of patchy access to the drugs.
Lisa Meeks, head of services and contractor support at CPWY, said: “Improving access to stop smoking medications significantly increases a person’s chances of quitting successfully.
“The community pharmacy PGD service will make it easier and faster for people who want to stop smoking to access treatment.”
The community pharmacy smoking cessation service currently offers nicotine replacement therapy, which is supplied for a maximum of two weeks at each consultation. An updated service will include the prescription of varenicline and cytisinicline, as agreed in the community pharmacy contract for 2024/2025 and 2025/2026.
However, a spokesperson for Community Pharmacy England (CPE) said that the service can only roll out “once changes have been made to IT systems”, which means there is currently no set date for its introduction.
Meeks added that the national service also has a narrower scope than a locally commissioned PGD. “While this will help expand capacity within smoking cessation pathways, it is important to note that this service will only support patients who have been referred from an NHS trust, such as following discharge from hospital,” she said.
The CPE spokesperson added that the body was pushing for a national open-access smoking cessation service for all smokers and users of vapes, which would provide “not just advice but the supply of effective medicines to support people to quit”.
