Classification: Official
Publication reference: PRN01515

To:

• Integrated care boards (ICBs):
  • chief executive officers
  • chief pharmacists
  • directors of medicines and pharmacy
  • medical directors
  • heads of primary care

cc.

• NHS England regions:
  • regional directors of public health and primary care
  • regional senior pharmacy integration leads
  • regional medical directors
  • regional chief pharmacists

Dear colleagues,

Update on Independent Prescribing in Community Pharmacy Pathfinder Programme

From September 2026, all newly qualified pharmacists will be independent prescribers on the day of their registration.

This presents an opportunity for NHS England to commission clinical services from community pharmacies incorporating independent prescribing, as the new workforce enters the profession.

In anticipation of this, as well as funding access to independent prescriber training, we are running the Independent Prescribing in Community Pharmacy Pathfinder Programme, enabling community pharmacist prescribers in ‘pathfinder’ sites to deliver prescribing models as part of integrated primary care clinical services.

Following an expression of interest to be part of the programme, 210 ‘pathfinder’ sites were chosen to deliver proposed prescribing models and pathways which fall into 3 broad categories:

1. Existing community pharmacy commissioned services; for example:

• acute minor illness
• contraception

2. Long term conditions; for example:

• prescribing for cardiovascular disease (statins, anticoagulation in atrial fibrillation)
• prescribing for respiratory disease (inhaler optimisation, rescue therapy)

3. Novel services; for example, a small number of ICBs proposed services such as:

• de-prescribing (reducing over prescribing for patients on repeat prescriptions for multiple medicines)
• reviewing antidepressants
• menopause services

Since then, we have been working with ICBs to develop their clinical pathways and create local governance frameworks.

We have also been working to nationally procure a clinical system which will allow community pharmacists to generate prescriptions via the NHS Electronic Prescription Service (EPS).

We are pleased to inform you that we can now start to roll out this system (CLEO SOLO from Cleo Systems) to pathfinder sites so they can start delivering their clinical services.

We have notified ICB community pharmacy leads of this development and will be working with them regarding the next steps of the CLEO SOLO rollout, including a series of webinars with ICBs.

As commissioners of the service, ICBs are asked to provide support and leadership to pathfinder sites over the course of the programme (to March 2025).

In June 2024, we transferred funding to ICBs to support project management, clinical supervision and local evaluation.

Our evaluation partners (University of Manchester and ICF International) are working with regions, ICBs and the national team to ensure there is a robust independent evaluation from the programme.

This will help us develop a framework which will support the commissioning of independent prescribing as part of clinical services in community pharmacy in the future.

Many thanks for your ongoing support and we look forward to working with you as the programme develops.

Yours sincerely,

Ali Sparke, Director for Dentistry, Community Pharmacy and Optometry, NHS England
David Webb, Chief Pharmaceutical Officer, NHS England