What will 2026 hold for pharmacy? — transcription

Siobhan: Hello and welcome to a special episode of The PJ Pod, brought to you by The Pharmaceutical Journal, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s official journal. 

Music plays

As is tradition, we’re back for another ‘end of year’ podcast. 

Cheers

In this episode, we’ll be looking forward to what might be coming up for the world of pharmacy in 2026. And, of course, we’ll be taking a moment to reflect on the year gone by, highlighting some of our brilliant journalists’ biggest news stories and investigations.

I’m Siobhan Chan, senior features editor at The Pharmaceutical Journal, and I’m joined by The PJ team, with some familiar voices and some that will be new to you. I’ll introduce everyone as we go along but, in the meantime, hello everyone!

Everyone: Hello!

Siobhan: So, you all know the drill. I’ll be asking each of you to give me your predictions for the year ahead and telling us what those predictions are based on. 

Now Corrinne, you’re our RPS correspondent and I really want to come to you first because, earlier in the year, a key event signalled one change that’s pretty close to home for us at The PJ. 

Corrinne:  Yes, that’s right. It’s not really a prediction because it’s pretty much guaranteed to go ahead, but the Royal Pharmaceutical Society will become the Royal College of Pharmacy in April 2026, following a special resolution vote by members earlier this year. My understanding is that the exact date is subject to agreement with the Privy Council and the charity regulators.

Caitlin: So does anyone actually know what the Privy Council is?

Graham: According to Wikipedia, it’s a body that advises the King and gives formal effect to various government orders, such as proclamations and orders in council.

Siobhan: OK, so we’re not going to go down that rabbit hole. And Corrinne, you’ve probably got off lightly there with that ‘prediction’.  But yeah, that’s going to be a significant change. So, what do you think it’s going to mean in practice?

Corrinne: Well, the RPS say that members will benefit from being part of a stronger and more influential professional leadership body, and that the term ‘royal college’ — which is a widely recognised term in society — will lead to a stronger voice in the media and with legislators, and hopefully some extra recognition for pharmacists and pharmacy, and patients will be at the forefront of their work.

Siobhan: OK, great. Thanks. And does it mean any other changes for the royal college?

Corrinne: Well, they will have charitable status, which means it’ll have a board of trustees for the first time, and they say it will modernise the charter, making the college more adaptable to change in future.

They’ve actually set out five commitments for the royal college, which you can see on the RPS website. 

Siobhan: OK, great. And what about our members — what kind of changes can they expect? 

Corrinne: Well, new postnominals — which, as everyone knows, those are the letters after your name. There’s an intention, as a royal college, to enhance existing education and development offers and credentialing, and they also say there’ll be an improved online experience and more ways to connect with other members and the royal college itself. 

Siobhan: OK, that’s good to know. So, what’s the response been like from our members?

Corrinne: So most members who voted actually voted for these changes, so they’re broadly in support. Number wise, I believe it was 71% of people who voted agreed that the society should become a royal college. 

Our executive editor Carolyn and I went to some live events around the country where we spoke to members. This was ahead of the vote. Most people we spoke to were positive about it. One member told us, and I’m quoting directly from them here, it was “obvious it will give us more flexibility to achieve, not only for patients which is our main mission, but also to grow as a profession”.

Siobhan: So that sounds like really good news, then. Any other predictions for next year — maybe something that isn’t already a certainty? 

Corrinne: Potentially, another big institutional shake-up, and that’s in the arena of politics. Next May, we’ll see the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd elections. Obviously we can’t predict the outcome, but I think we could expect a bit of a shift in the political landscape, maybe especially in Wales. 

Siobhan: Right — that is very different! Why are we expecting to see such a big shift then and what will that mean for pharmacists?

Corrinne:  It’s hard to say what it would mean for pharmacists, but it will be a big shift either way. In Wales, current polls suggest that Labour won’t win, which is a big deal because they’ve got the most seats in Wales at every Westminster and Senedd election since 1922. 

A September poll of voting intentions put Plaid Cymru and Reform pretty much neck and neck, with Labour coming third. Interestingly, there was a recent by-election in Caerphilly (I said that carefully – Caerphilly) which was always Labour — that went to Plaid, with Reform coming second and Labour behind. 

And, we also know that health minister Jeremy Miles will be stepping down.

Graham: And what about what’s likely to happen in Scotland, do you think?

Corrinne: Well, in Scotland, although current polls do suggest another Scottish National Party win, around a third of the current MSPs are planning to step down — that’s including Humza Yousaf, a previous first minister but also a former health minister. So that could be a lot of new voices. And the new player, Reform, seem to be gaining ground and polling close to Labour. But, at the moment, the SNP are still holding the largest single share. Last time I looked, it was about 34%.

Siobhan: Any idea about what that might mean for pharmacy?

Corrinne: It’s really hard to say, I think, at this stage, but I’m mentioning it because I think it’s definitely something to watch very closely, just because these are two very innovative nations when it comes to pharmacy. So what happens there should be of interest to everyone.

Siobhan: Great, thanks Corrinne, it’ll be really interesting to see how that all plays out over the next year. 

You’re right about these being innovative nations — Scotland and Wales have been leading the charge in terms of community pharmacy services, with more funding for prescribing announced last month. But, in England, it’s a bit of a different story. 

So, Graham — you covered the contract negotiations earlier this year, including the terms and the impact on pharmacists’ day-to-day work.

Graham: I did.

Siobhan: So what do you think will happen in 2026 with pharmacy funding?

Graham: Well, I mean, pharmacists have had significant funding problems for many years and they won’t be going away anytime soon. But the contract that was agreed earlier this year did mean that there was a little more money, which was a step in the right direction, although real change probably looks some way off.

Siobhan: I see, so are we expecting more of the same in 2026?

Graham: Well, the current pharmacy contract runs out at the end of March next year in 2026 and, as we’re recording, negotiations have not yet started, although they were due to have. But we would hope for details of the new contract before the end of this financial year, although we should say that the last one did run over the agreed term, and that could happen again. Although that’s clearly not ideal in terms of uncertainty for pharmacists, and it’s very difficult for them to plan ahead in those circumstances. 

It’s also worth saying that when the current contract was announced, Community Pharmacy England did say that the government was committed in the longer term to a sustainable model of funding for community pharmacy, so there could be some changes coming down the line.

Siobhan: Right, so that’s promising. And how do we expect the negotiations to go?

Graham: It’s very hard to say and when negotiations are ongoing, both parties always keep their cards very close to their chests. But one possible positive sign of government goodwill was that the pharmacy minister, Stephen (not Neil) Kinnock, met with the main pharmacy representative bodies — so that’s the Company Chemists’ Association, the National Pharmacy Association and the Independent Pharmacies Association — in advance of the negotiations to find out what’s on their mind. To our knowledge, that’s not been done before, or maybe it’s just the first time they’ve publicised it, but either way it’s a good sign that this government genuinely wants to connect with community pharmacy. 

Siobhan: OK, that sounds good. Hopefully the government are sitting up and taking note of the huge funding shortfall in pharmacy and the financial pressure that’s on contractors right now.

Graham: Yes, hopefully. I mean, last time, when the current contract was announced earlier this year, some people felt that Community Pharmacy England’s negotiators could have been a little bit tougher with the government and there was some unhappiness that the contract wasn’t as generous as it could be, but the negotiators obviously have a tricky hand to play in those negotiations.

Joanna: It seems like the amount of the overall sum allocated to pharmacy is set by the Treasury. Do you think there’s actually room for any more funding to come to community pharmacy?

Graham: Well, that’s a very good question. The negotiating process is quite opaque and how much influence the community pharmacy negotiating team actually have in extracting more money from the government is a moot point, I would say. Although I’m sure they try their hardest. 

I suspect the Treasury are pretty strict about how much money there is on offer and then it’s a question of negotiating how that money is going to be spent, as you say, but to be honest, it’s very hard to say.

Joanna: I guess one thing we have seen before is a separate sum of money allocated for Pharmacy First and other services. And it looks like we might see that again with prescribing. So maybe that’s where the influence is.

Graham: Yeah, that’s right, I mean, they could come up with a plan. Because obviously the prescribing scheme will be forthcoming sometime soon, so there could be an announcement that that is kind of ring-fenced money. It’ll be interesting to see how they play that one.

Siobhan: It really sounds like pharmacists need more of an edge at the negotiating table. Has anything changed with that negotiating process at all?

Graham: There has been a tweak to CPE’s negotiating team, so there’s a bit more representation from the smaller independent pharmacies and a bit less from the big chains. It’s not a huge difference. 

Siobhan: OK — and I suspect I know — but what do you think pharmacists are hoping for in terms of funding?

Graham: More of it, I guess, which isn’t a surprise. One thing that community pharmacy has been very keen on for a while, and still is, is a further expansion of clinical work, particularly Pharmacy First. They’d love to see that expanded as long as it’s funded properly. Other than that, later in 2026 we’re due to see a nationally commissioned service for independent prescribing, which is following on from the ongoing pathfinder pilots, which will be a significant change to what community pharmacies can and do offer, but whether or not it’ll appear in the next contract, it may be a little bit too late for this next contract. We’ll see.

Siobhan: Thanks Graham. I’m going to bring in Joanna at this point. You’ve heard a bit from her during this podcast, but I’ve not introduced her properly. So Joanna joined the team early this year as our new senior clinical reporter. 

Joanna, can you tell us a bit more about what community pharmacy prescribing might look like in England?

Joanna: Hello. So, as Graham mentioned, over the last couple of years, there’s been a pathfinder project, kind of different to a pilot in that it’s testing a lot of different things. You know, how community pharmacy prescribing could be used in different clinical areas, so hypertension, contraception, minor ailments, are just a few things that are being tested. 

But they’ve also been testing the actual model of service delivery, things like the IT system and pathways that link up community pharmacy prescribing into GP referrals. I’ve seen one where they’re taking pressure off hospital waiting lists. So that’s been going on for the last couple of years and the funding for those pathfinders is coming to an end. We know that integrated care boards have been asked to continue local projects, so pharmacies that have been providing these prescribing services through the pathfinder project, integrated care boards have been asked to continue those locally where they can.

Siobhan: Wasn’t there also an aim to negotiate a national service as part of that?

Joanna: Yeah, I mean, that’s the ultimate goal. And, obviously, from summer 2026 we’ll see new registrants entering the workforce as prescribers. I think they’d like something to be in place in community by then, but we’ll see. We don’t really have any detail on a national service beyond these kind of local prescribing pathfinders continuing, where possible.

Graham: Yeah, I think you’ve been to visit a couple of them, Joanna. 

Joanna: Yeah, I went up to Newcastle earlier this year and visited a couple of pathfinder projects up there, which was just really interesting, just to spend some time in the pharmacies, you could see how patients kind of came in, and I don’t know, the pharmacist might use prescribing to make an amendment to a prescription, to allow them to get a different formulation of something where what they’ve been prescribed was out of stock. And then all the way through to, like, really innovative clinical areas, projects working across GP, secondary care. We have another podcast episode planned on that, so stay tuned.

Graham: Great.

Siobhan: Great, thanks Joanna. Now on that topic, our learning team has produced a lot of educational content about prescribing recently. Caitlin, I know you’ve been working on this — do you have any predictions about how this new skill will be used in different settings?

Caitlin: Hello, yes I do. My prediction is that we’ll start to see interesting responses from employers about how to make use of these newly developed prescribing skills in practice. They’ll need to find ways of deploying this new skillset while making sure that the newly qualified pharmacists are supported to work safely and stay within their scope of practice — so we might see things like job descriptions begin to evolve and changes made to inductions and supervision.

Siobhan: OK, right. So what kind of changes to job descriptions are you talking about here?

Caitlin: So, they’ll need to facilitate the new levels of prescribing competency coming through from the MPharm now and think about what’s safe for a prescriber straight out of their foundation year. To do this, they might create bespoke supervision structures or their own definitions for scope of practice that reflect their local context. It’ll be interesting to see what prescribing tasks new pharmacists will be able to take on safely and how this develops over time.

Siobhan: So, what we are saying is there’s still no clarity on the exact tasks that pharmacists who are independent prescribers will be expected to do in their day-to-day jobs? 

Caitlin: Not really, no. There’s been some scepticism about whether the NHS is ready for it. There’s a risk that newly qualified pharmacists won’t be able to make use of their prescribing skills straight away, which will miss the aims of the reform and the long-term commitment to building a prescribing workforce. 

But the problems have been a bit obvious and we’ve been seeing them in the run up for this for a while. For example, the lack of designated prescribing practitioners and the challenge of scaling this up sufficiently for the training year have been talked about for some time, and we are now only a matter of months away from the first cohort joining the register.

Joanna: Is that similar to what junior doctors do, does anyone know? In terms of having sort of designated prescribing activities that they can grow in competence in after the first year?

Caitlin: I’m not actually sure, no, but I think the issue of if people feel confident and comfortable with them, you know, being straight out and going into possible prescribing roles, I think it’s fine, as long as things are very well defined and the proper structures are in place. But there’s going to be quite a lot of potential for there to be some differences between different parts of the country as well. So you’re almost setting yourselves up for a postcode lottery when it comes to prescribing, in terms of which trusts and which hospitals have different structures in place.

Joanna: My impression of pharmacists is that they’re a very careful profession. And, obviously, the GPhC has, you know, powers to regulate, you know, whether or not someone is acting safely, whether or not that is prescribing. I think the concern maybe from some areas is: will pharmacists be under pressure to prescribe in a way that might be less safe? So we’ve already kind of seen that with, like, online questionnaires for weight loss medications, reports of people you know having to, like, churn out loads of prescriptions under time pressure in a way that doesn’t really allow them to clinically assess the patient. So I think that’s another concern, maybe more for private services, but maybe for NHS services too, if there’s a time squeeze.

Siobhan: Yes, really good points there. I’m thinking about the main pharmacy sectors now. Is there one that you think will be fastest adapting to this new skillset?

Caitlin: I think it’ll be easier to take a more structured approach in secondary care. The teams are bigger, there’s more resource and there are better definitions in place for scope of practice. They’ll probably have more of a prescriptive approach in hospitals with specific tasks and examples — maybe even a mini formulary they’ll work within. 

Siobhan: OK, that makes sense. And what about community pharmacy or general practice?

Caitlin: Pharmacy First is an area where that prescribing qualification could be applied outside of secondary specialisms. Within primary care, we might see pharmacist-led clinics being set up, but I imagine it’ll vary place by place. It’s perhaps unlikely that newly registered pharmacists will be leading on these types of initiatives straight away, but there are a growing range of avenues for them to explore.

Joanna: Yeah, most pharmacists working in general practice are already prescribers, aren’t they, or at least training to be. So, yeah, maybe that’s kind of a sector that might take a bit of a lead in it. We’ve also not mentioned private services, so pharmacist prescribing is absolutely massive in private services, so things like medicated weight loss or HRT, private clinics. 

Yeah, that’s actually another prediction for next year, Siobhan. Everyone’s been talking about weight-loss drugs this year, so I think these conversations about regulation and private supply, online supply, that’s only going to continue in 2026, particularly since government did a call for evidence this autumn all about private prescribing, and I think that was in part, really fuelled by the massive rise we’ve seen, which is hugely influenced by these new weight-loss drugs.

Siobhan: Yeah, so we have published a lot of features and learning content on GLP-1s and weight-loss drugs this year. I know that you’ve looked at pipelines of what’s in development in the industry, Joanna. So what are you thinking — are there any new treatments set to be launched in 2026?

Joanna: Yes, from the research we did for that piece, I found out we could be expecting the launch of oral Wegovy and CagriSema, both in development by Novo Nordisk. So we could see those launch in 2026. And we’re expecting any day now phase III clinical trial results from Eli Lilly’s retatrutide. That’s a triagonist and it’s already rumoured to be in supply on the black market, even though it hasn’t finished clinical trials yet.  But it could be launched in 2027. 

Siobhan: OK, so that’s looking really far ahead — we just want to do 2026 today! 

Great, so next year, do you think there will be any new weight-loss treatments available on the NHS?

Joanna: Yeah, I’ll keep it to 2026! I mean, what’s available on the NHS really depends on NICE approval. They recently published a forward view for what they’re looking at over the next year. So we know obesity is a priority area for NICE, they’ve highlighted that in their forward view. One thing we do expect is to see something on Eli Lilly’s daily weight-loss pill orforglipron, so depending on regulatory approval from the MHRA, it’s expected to go through NICE in 2026.

Siobhan: OK wonderful. What else is coming up in terms of new medicines more widely, so outside of that weight loss sphere? And do you think any pharmacists expect any changes to their clinical practice?

Joanna: Yeah I mean, there’s always new drugs being developed and we’ve had a lot of conversation this year about whether the NHS should be adopting these new drugs as soon as they’re available. But a lot of these new drugs can deliver really big cost savings for the NHS as well as improved patient care. 

One of those areas which NICE has said is a priority this coming year is going to be biosimilars. So expect to see new guidelines for biosimilar use in areas including diabetes and mental health. 

Health tech is also a big priority for NICE and they’ve said they’re also going to be looking out for emerging pharmacological treatments for MASH, as well as in oncology, new applications of CAR-T therapies, advanced therapy medicinal products and tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes.

Siobhan: OK, so there’s quite a lot of changes happening. Do you think pharmacy teams are ready for those changes? 

Joanna: Yeah I mean, pharmacists are medicines experts and pharmacy teams have been instrumental in previous biosimilar rollouts, so I definitely think we can expect to see more involvement from pharmacy teams in that. One big concern affecting the pharmacist workforce is cuts to NHS England and integrated care boards. So, ICBs have been told to cut a lot of their staff by 50%, but we don’t know yet how this will impact the medicines optimisation teams that sit at that level, and we don’t know how it will filter through to patient-facing staff in hospitals. We’re likely to see that unfold over the next year.

Siobhan: OK, so there could be some worrying changes there then. Well, thanks for taking us through that, Joanna. So we’ve now got to our final contributor, the wonderful Sophie, our investigations editor.

Sophie: Hello!

Siobhan: So what’s your prediction for next year, Sophie? Hopefully we can end on something positive.

Sophie: Well, my prediction is that there will continue to be conflict between GPs and pharmacy over Pharmacy First funding.

Siobhan: OK, so maybe not as positive as I’d hoped! Right, so this is the story about some GPs saying that Pharmacy First funding should be redirected towards GPs themselves, right? 

Sophie: Snd it’s worse than that. In a letter from the British Medical Association that was sent to GPs “in error”, pharmacists were labelled “less skilled people”.

Everyone: Oh dear, that’s not good. 

Sophie: No, and it shows a complete lack of understanding about what pharmacists do, which seems to be a recurring theme.

Graham: I think the BMA did roll back slightly from that, didn’t they? And claimed, as you said, it was in error, and they never intended to publish it. But even so, it’s perhaps an indication of the way some doctors think.

Joanna: It’s clear there is still tension because even after that, there was the national LMC conference – the BMA’s local medical committees conference. There were several motions in there that kind of called for money to be redirected from Pharmacy First to GPs and things like that. So there clearly is this tension. This kind of theme has a long history. 

Graham: There’s clearly a tension there, as you say, particularly as clinical areas for pharmacists are expanding, and I suspect not all doctors feel entirely comfortable with that, so we may see more of this next year.

Siobhan: Where has that come from then, and why do you think it’s going to continue into 2026?

Sophie: It’s not really clear where this has come from, but it’s clear that funding pressures are causing some competition between the professions. Although, obviously, not all GPs think like this.

Siobhan: Oh dear. So, what can be done to change this? 

Sophie: It feels like there needs to be a culture shift, which obviously isn’t a quick fix. It will be interesting to see as more pharmacists become prescribers whether this could change attitudes towards them. 

But the work that pharmacists are doing to use their clinical skills more will benefit patients and could even take some of the pressure off GPs, so you’d think it would be a win-win for everyone.

Joanna: Yeah, I was also going to mention, in terms of a culture shift, I think these like personal conversations between pharmacists and GPs, the personal relationships, are really important. We found that when I was looking at Pharmacy First across the country, and we’ve also recently published a blog on a building bridges event that pharmacists and GPs in London did, and I think more of that kind of thing hopefully can be changing culture. But yeah, as you’ve said and Graham said, that funding is going to be a continued pressure. 

And then in terms of a win-win benefiting patients, another way we’ll see community pharmacy hopefully take pressure off GPs will be through the power to amend prescriptions in limited ways, so that might be supplying a slightly different volume or formulation to what’s on the prescription, as long as the dose is kept the same. Yeah, so I mentioned this earlier as a possible use for prescribing, but this could be introduced next year for all pharmacists working in the community. It’s designed to be used when a medication is out of stock and when there’s an urgent need to supply an alternative.

So the government put its proposals out for consultation, so that just closed on the 11th of December, so hopefully next year we’ll see some of those changes being put into practice.

Siobhan: OK and if the proposals come into force, what difference will that make for patients and clinicians?

Joanna: I do think everyone will really welcome this change — it should help with medicine shortages and make it easier for patients to access medicines if the one they’ve been prescribed isn’t available. We know that both community and hospital pharmacists say that managing these shortages takes up loads of their time, and we heard that from both sectors in an inquiry in the House of Lords just recently. And pharmacists have been asking for the ability to amend prescriptions for a while. This really was made clear by a coroner’s report last year where a child wasn’t able to access antibiotics for Strep A and I think with winter pressures, you know, that need to access prescriptions when you need them, rather than being sent around the houses, it’s just going to become even more apparent. So, yeah, this would allow a pharmacist to supply the medication that they have available, removes the need to send a patient back to the GP, who would then need to spend time writing a new prescription and issuing that to the pharmacy.

Siobhan: OK, that’s perfect, because it sounds like what the government have been talking about in the ten-year health plan and the desire to shift care from hospitals into the community. 

Sophie, I think you wrote about pharmacy’s role in the ten-year health plan, which came out this summer. Do you think we’ll see some aspects of this being delivered next year?

Sophie: So, vaccination and prevention services are already being rolled out in pharmacies, like the flu vaccination service for children aged 2 and 3, so it’s started. And from next year, pharmacists will be able to provide HPV catch-up jabs to young people who may have missed them at school. 

Siobhan: Perfect. Any other roles that pharmacy will be playing in that ten -year plan? 

Sophie: Well we know that the first 43 neighbourhood health centres are being rolled out, which the government has described as multidisciplinary “one-stop shops”. These are services that are centred around general practice and link with pharmacists and other health and social care professionals, as well as local government and the voluntary sector. 

We also know pharmacists will be delivering more clinical services to support people with long-term conditions, like cardiovascular disease and diabetes, but there isn’t a lot of detail on that yet.

Siobhan: In summary, it sounds like we could really start to see delivery of that ten-year plan next year, I suppose?

Sophie: Yes, but let’s not forget that this relies on having the workforce and the funding in place, which as you heard from Graham, isn’t guaranteed. 

Graham: So the consultation on the workforce plan finished early November, so responses will be in and the government will be deciding on what they’re going to do with those responses. So, we’re not quite sure exactly when it’s going to be published, but if it is published before we publish or before this podcast goes live, we’ll put a note in the show notes so that you can catch up on what was said.

Joanna: Yeah it’d be good to have the insight from like, actual pharmacy bodies and employers, potentially, about the workforce plan in particular.

Graham: Yeah. It’ll be interesting to see what the government come up with, because it’s not going to just talk about numbers — it’s going to talk about how the workforce will be shaped in the future. So particularly with the rise in the number of independent prescribing pharmacists and the fact that from next summer 2026 all newly registered pharmacists will be independent prescribers, it’ll be interesting to see how that you know how much kind of weight that’s given when the workforce plan is published.

Joanna: Do you think it will speak to pharmacists, like existing pharmacists who aren’t prescribers?

Graham: You would hope so. I mean, there is a concern that pharmacists who aren’t independent prescribers might get kind of left behind a little bit. So we’ll have to see. But we know the government are definitely keen on independent prescribing. So yeah, time will tell.

Siobhan: OK, wow. So there really is a lot going on next year. I have no idea how I’m going to sum all of that up, but it does sound like 2026 is going to see some massive changes for the world of pharmacy.

Graham: Yeah, well, you can start counting them on your fingers. We’ve got the royal college coming; we’ve got the implementation of the NHS ten-ear plan; we’ve got the ten-year plan workforce plan being published; we have the potential national pathfinders scheme being commissioned; we’ve got the first tranche of newly registered pharmacists who are going to be qualified immediately as independent prescribers. 

Can anyone think of anything else?

Siobhan: Well, those massive political changes in Scotland and Wales as well.

Graham: Yes, big changes.

Joanna: Yeah, big changes. But you know, if it’s not funded properly, I don’t know if it will feel like a change for everybody. I think it might feel like continued struggle unless there’s increases in funding and support for the workforce as well.

Graham: Yeah, it certainly could be in the community pharmacy world.

Siobhan: That was a really nice round up there Graham, and thanks for doing that part of my job for me! Thanks for that collective look into the crystal ball, everyone. I’m glad that we’ve got all of you here to help our audience navigate all of the changes that are coming up. And obviously, thank you to the whole PJ team for producing some fantastic journalism this year.

Graham: Yeah, hear hear. 

Corrinne: Actually, on that note, I’d also like to thank everybody that I’ve gone out to for comment this year, when I’ve been writing news. I’ve approached loads of people — pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, charities, healthcare bodies — and I quite literally couldn’t do my job without them. So whoever you are, if you’ve helped me out this year, I’m hugely grateful to you. Thank you.

Joanna: Yeah, likewise. And if anyone’s listening who’d love to be featured, please do get in touch, because we’re always looking for more blogs, opinion and kind of comments on our news stories, so we’d love to hear from you.

Siobhan: Yeah, do get in touch with us. Obviously we couldn’t do this without the wonderful experts who’ve given their time to come on the podcast this year and talk to us. And of course you, our loyal listeners. 

So, as always, please like, subscribe and follow us wherever you download your podcasts. 

If you’ve got any predictions that you want to share with us for next year, or if you just want to join in our conversation, get in touch and let us know on social media. 

You can use the hashtag #PJPod or email us at editor@pharmaceutical-journal.com. 

Thanks for listening – goodbye everyone!

Everyone: Bye!