Yau Ming Low / Shutterstock.com
The Nuffield Trust has urged the government to ensure that independent prescribing is included in the upcoming NHS ‘Ten-year workforce plan’ for England.
In a report — ‘Independent prescribing in the UK: Workforce ambitions and implementation challenges‘, published on 9 April 2026 — the think tank said the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) must also ensure sufficient supervision for the cohort of independent pharmacist prescribers (IPPs) who join the pharmacy register from September 2026.
The report noted that access to a designated prescribing practitioner (DPP) “varies significantly by setting”, raising particular concerns around access to DPPs in community pharmacy.
All prescribing trainees, including all newly qualified pharmacists undertaking their foundation year from 2025/2026, need a DPP to supervise and sign-off their prescribing competencies. The DPP must meet the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s DPP competency framework, be an active and experienced prescriber, and have experience in training or teaching.
The Nuffield Trust report urged the government to “consider the balance of incentives for independent prescribing in community pharmacies to ensure that prescribing qualifications are used in the community”.
It also claimed that prescribers in community pharmacy in England and Northern Ireland had little opportunity to use their skills, reporting concerns from local leads that “there is a risk that pharmacist prescribers in the community will move to different sectors in order to be able to keep using their prescribing skills”.
A national NHS community pharmacist prescribing service is understood to be part of ongoing negotiations for the ‘Community pharmacy contractual framework’ for England.
Responding to the report, the Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists (GHP) — which represents pharmacists within NHS organisations — urged employers to adopt and implement job planning for pharmacists, with at least 10% of pharmacists’ time set aside to supporting professional activities, including supervising prescribing trainees.
A spokesperson for the GHP said: “Members of the GHP feel under pressure and burnt out with additional training burden without protected time in job plans to support newly qualified pharmacist prescribers… [supervision] can only happen if time allocated for learner and supervisor were afforded.”
A spokesperson for the Pharmacists’ Defence Association (PDA) commented: “Those who will be qualified as IPPs [from September 2026] will have started this journey in 2021 with the new initial education and training of pharmacists standards, so there has been a significant amount of time for chief pharmacists in all four nations and the pharmacy regulators to prepare for how best to support these (and future cohorts) of pharmacists to use these prescribing skills.
“However, there are currently shortfalls in both placements and availability of DPPs for trainees.”
Pharmacy placement providers in England receive less funding than providers in Scotland and Wales — an estimated £20 per day per student in England compared to £120 in Wales and £150 in Scotland, the Nuffield Trust report noted.
However, the PDA spokesperson noted the success of pharmacist prescribers in primary care, with 77% of pharmacist prescribers in these settings using their prescribing qualification on a daily basis.
“The additional roles reimbursement scheme was a significant driver in facilitating the development of the role of prescribing pharmacists in primary care. The supervision and governance arrangements for these roles faced some of the same challenges which the report identifies in community or neighbourhood settings.
“However, with the appropriate national structural framework, including funding, there is every reason to be optimistic that IPPs can fully utilise their skills in community settings just as colleagues have in primary care settings,” they added.
Malcolm Harrison, chief executive of the Company Chemists’ Association said: “At the core of the issues is the absence of a nationally NHS commissioned independent prescribing service in England.
“Without this, the full benefits of pharmacist prescribing cannot be fully realised.
“An independent prescribing service would enable community pharmacy employers to develop their own network of prescribing practitioners, meaning they would be better placed to provide prescribing supervision to their own trainees, reducing their reliance on other parts of the system and create a more sustainable training model,” he added.
Responding to the report, a spokesperson for the DHSC said: “This government is determined to expand the role of pharmacies and better utilise the skills of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, including a commitment to making prescribing part of the services delivered by community pharmacists.
“Pharmacies are central to our shift towards community-based care, and we increased community pharmacy funding to £3.1bn in 2025/2026 — the largest boost for any part of the NHS over the last two years.
“Our ten-year health plan sets out how community pharmacies will play a central role in delivering the Neighbourhood Health Service and ensuring more people can receive care closer to home, freeing up GP appointments.”
