Pharmacies in England to prescribe more medication from autumn

Pharmacies in England will be able to prescribe more medications as part of an effort to speed up care and ease pressure on GP surgeries and hospitals, according to BBC News.

As part of the Pharmacy First scheme, pharmacists can currently prescribe medication for a sore throat, earache, sinusitis, shingles, impetigo, infected bites and urinary tract infections, the news site reports.

But from the autumn, a new £340m investment will see five common ailments added to this list, although it is not yet clear what these will be.

However, the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) has said the deal – where patients across England will benefit from more services, treatments and better access to medicines from their local pharmacy – does not do enough to address rising business rates, employer costs and medicine prices.

The NPA said that while the deal "points in the right direction", it did not address the "crippling" new costs hitting pharmacies.

"We remain concerned that it does very little to close the £2.5bn funding gap that the NHS itself identified a year ago," said NPA chairman Dr Olivier Picard, adding that the expanded scheme was "nowhere near ambitious enough to transform patient access to care, nor make full use of pharmacists' skills".

He went on: "We are also concerned that the current funding levels mean that many pharmacies will struggle to take this development forwards, risking its success. Pharmacies cannot sustain yet more loss-making work."

Dr Leyla Hannbeck, chief executive of the Independent Pharmacies Association, which represents about 5,000 pharmacies across England and Wales, said that while the changes are "a step in the right direction", the "funding on offer doesn't cover the workload to do this".

"Many pharmacists will find themselves in a situation where they're really thinking about whether they can keep their heads above the water," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Scotland has a scheme which was seen as the model for England's Pharmacy First - Northern Ireland and Wales also have systems allowing pharmacies to treat patients with certain conditions.

The Pharmacy First scheme in England was first launched in 2024.