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In a report on the outcomes of the national recruitment scheme for 2024/2025, published on 7 May 2025, NHS England revealed that 3,814 applicants applied for 4,451 training places, of which 3,127 students received an offer and 3,039 accepted the offer for the 2025/2026 foundation year.
According to the data, 68% of training places offered via the Oriel scheme for 2025/2026 have been filled.
The report also revealed that 3,297 (74%) of the 4,451 available training places were in community pharmacy, 962 (22%) were in hospital and 190 (4%) in general practice.
Multi-sector programmes, which are split across at least two sectors, amounted to 1,647 (37%) training places.
Within community pharmacy, the report revealed that independents (1–5 branches) offered 1,394 training places; medium-sized multiples (25–199 branches) offered 759 training places; small multiples (6–24 branches) offered 733 training places; and large community pharmacy multiples (≥200) offered 411 training places.
Training placement fill rates were lowest in south west England at 50%, while fill rates were highest in Wales at 100% — where all trainees are employed by the NHS in a multi-sector training programme.
Multi-sector programmes and programmes where hospital is listed as the primary employer had the highest fill rates at 91% and 100%, respectively.
Where the primary employer is community pharmacy, the fill rate was 58%, while the fill rate for general practice was 84%.
This is the first year that all pharmacist foundation training places were required to be offered via the Oriel system.
The trainees, who start the programme in July 2025, will be the first to be educated under new General Pharmaceutical Council standards and learning outcomes, which enable them to qualify as independent prescribers when they join the register in summer 2026.
Speaking at the Clinical Pharmacy Congress, held in London on 9 and 10 May 2025, Nick Haddington, pharmacy dean for south west England at NHS England’s Workforce Training and Education Directorate, told delegates that NHS England will be writing to all training sites in May 2025 to set out what needs to happen next.
“Training sites will be asked to submit details of their supervisors to us [NHS England], so designated supervisor [and] designated prescribing practitioner [DPP],” he explained. “Provision of the supervisor details to us will result in e-portfolio access.”
Haddington added: “At the point when the trainee starts, we require that the training plan is uploaded to the e-portfolio… it is the responsibility of the lead designated supervisor to do that.”
Concerns have been expressed around access to DPPs, particularly in community pharmacy.
In a statement published in May 2024, the National Pharmacy Association warned that unless training sites already had a DPP in place, the likelihood of having one for the start of the 2025/2026 foundation year was “slim”.
In response to a question from the audience on a reluctance by some independent prescribers to act as DPPs, Haddington said: “There is variation, and I think, this is quite new for people. And people are used to a DPP being the one person in a practice setting who is responsible for assessing somebody. The model is very different [for the foundation training year]… [DPPs] are working in partnership with a lead designated supervisor, so we’ve got that triangulation and that support.
“This year is going to be the hardest year because it is the first year we have done it. Every year we will have more people who are able to be DPPs and the way that we are supporting people in community pharmacy and all sectors to become independent prescribers is really going to help that.”
From the 2027/2028 foundation training year, there is a requirement that all training sites will be multi-sector.
Haddington said: “Multi-sector training places have a massive fill rate, over 90%, so we’ve got a very clear understanding that MPharm students and [Overseas Pharmacists’ Assessment Programme] students really value and recognise the benefits of having multi-sector exposure within their training sites.”
