Healthcare provision

MPs urge health secretary to fund a ‘Pharmacy First’ service to ease wider NHS pressures

In letters to health secretary Steve Barclay, MPs and members of the House of Lords called for urgent funding to stabilise the community pharmacy sector and a “fair and fit for purpose funding model”.…

Pharmacists on high-risk clinical wards reduce prescribing errors, evidence review finds

Researchers used data from 19 studies to identify the most common factors that increase the chance of prescribing errors.…

Health Education England to fund extra 3,000 places on pharmacist prescribing training courses

Applications are open to pharmacists in all sectors and should be made directly to the institution holding the course.…

Hormone replacement therapy pre-payment scheme is too ‘complex’, say pharmacy leaders

The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee said the new system is "complex" and will not work well with current prescription and pricing systems, creating more work for pharmacy contractors.…

Pharmacists should be able to refer patients directly to secondary care for skin conditions, says APPG chair

Exclusive: Taiwo Owatemi, chair of the All-Party Pharmacy Group, has said pharmacists could "easily" help with dermatology referrals.…

Talking about polypharmacy: the service user perspective

As the population ages and polypharmacy grows, the challenge of optimising patient medication becomes increasingly complex. The 'National overprescribing review', published in September 2021, recognised the need to change the culture of prescribing in the NHS and the importance of engaging service u…

NHS testosterone prescribing in women rises ten-fold in seven years

Exclusive: Experts are concerned testosterone is being used inappropriately in younger women and is seen as “as a solution to their relationship problems”.…

Rising number of drug price concessions imposed on pharmacies by the government

Exclusive: Pharmacy bodies say the concession system is "broken" and warrants an "urgent short-term solution and more fundamental long-term reform".…

Pharmacist prescribers can reduce sedative use in care homes, study demonstrates

Researchers found that pharmacist independent prescribers were able to improve outcomes for care home residents through "effective deprescribing" of anticholinergic and sedative drugs.…

The ‘Care homes independent prescriber study’: lessons learned for practitioners and researchers

A summary of the learnings from CHIPPS, a study in which pharmacist independent prescribers were placed into care homes to improve medicines management.…