Community Pharmacy England chief executive Janet Morrison has warned the government the potential for independent prescribers (IPs) to improve the health of local communities will be lost if it fails to improve local commissioning and ensure there are enough “sufficient” services.

Morrison (pictured) told Sigma Pharmaceuticals’ conference at the Hilton Heathrow Hotel yesterday the role IPs can play in deprescribing and optimising patients’ use of medicines needed to be thought through by ministers.

“We need to think about how we improve the use of independent prescriber skills in the system,” she said.

“If there isn’t sufficient services and capability in the way services are commissioned for us to offer a really meaningful role for independent prescribers, they’ll go off to GPs won’t they, and that’s a real lost opportunity.”

Morrison also criticised NHS England for taking too long to launch the IP pathfinder sites. In May this year, NHSE said 14 sites had gone live in the run-up to electronic prescription technology being made available, which was confirmed last month.

NHSE first announced plans for pharmacist prescribing pathfinder sites in August 2022.

“It’s disappointing how long it’s taken to get the IP pilots off the ground. In some areas, they are just about starting. Pharmacies expressed an interest in being involved in those pilots with their ICSs, maybe a year ago,” she said.

“In some areas, the only money that has been spent has been on the NHS pod who is trying to run the scheme, no actual primary services.

“But it’s been disappointing how long it’s taken to get up and running. They’ve missed a trick and that was wrong by NHS England.”

Morrison also said “we need to be really clear about how IPs are supported post-registration and what the career path is.”

“They’re not going to just walk into your pharmacy on day one, and you’ll give them everything to do even if you could. They need to be developed,” she said.

“We need to have the clinical services that make the best use of independent prescribers. It was clear when we spoke to the Conservative government about Pharmacy First, and when we spoke to this government about the potential of the community pharmacists’ prescribing service, that the use of IPs is absolutely central to that.

“We absolutely want to be able to build those clinical services to say ‘this is the exciting thing you can do as a career path in the community face-to-face with patients who need the service.

“The balancing act is, at the moment, I’ve got to get the government to pay for what we’re already being asked to do.”