Community pharmacies across England are to gain significant new prescribing powers from this autumn under a £340 million deal that the government says will relieve pressure on stretched GP surgeries while getting patients faster access to the treatment they need for a range of common conditions.
The new arrangement will allow pharmacists to prescribe antibiotics and other medication for five conditions currently requiring a GP consultation: sinusitis, earache, infected insect bites, impetigo and infected eczema. Together, these conditions account for millions of GP appointments every year — appointments that take up significant clinical time and create waiting lists that delay care for patients with more complex needs.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting, announcing the deal, described it as a fundamental shift in the role of community pharmacy within the NHS — moving it from a dispensing service into a first-contact clinical service capable of treating patients in their high street rather than routing them through already overburdened general practice.
“Pharmacists' clinical skills have long been underutilised. This marks a fundamental shift in their role within the NHS.”
The deal has been broadly welcomed by the pharmaceutical profession, whose representative bodies have long argued that pharmacists' clinical skills are significantly underutilised within the current NHS model. The Royal Pharmaceutical Society said the announcement was an important step forward, while noting that the long-term sustainability of community pharmacy depends on adequate funding across the whole sector, not just for expanded services.
Patient groups similarly expressed support in principle, while raising questions about implementation: whether pharmacies in rural and deprived areas — where demand is often highest and where the GP shortage is most acute — would have the resources to provide the new service at scale from day one.
The announcement is part of a broader government strategy to reform primary care by shifting more clinical activity out of GP surgeries and into community settings, including pharmacies, opticians and community diagnostic centres. Whether the strategy succeeds will depend in large part on how well the additional funding translates into additional capacity on the ground.