From 2026, all newly registered pharmacists will qualify as independent prescribers, marking a significant shift in the profession and creating the potential for pharmacists to play a much greater clinical role in patient care.
But as the conversation around prescribing matures, I believe we’re starting to focus on the wrong question.
The challenge is no longer whether we can train more pharmacist prescribers, it’s whether community pharmacy has the infrastructure, capacity and opportunities to turn those qualifications into meaningful clinical practice.
Motivated
Pharmacists are highly motivated to become prescribers. Pharmacy owners recognise the need to evolve their businesses, and there is enthusiasm for a more clinical future. However, many are encountering practical barriers preventing the realisation of potential benefits.
One of the most common challenges is securing support from a Designated Prescribing Practitioner (DPP). Many experienced clinicians are committed to supporting the next generation, but supervision requires time and capacity that can be difficult to find in high-pressure working environments.
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The challenge has also been compounded by how prescribing programmes have traditionally been delivered: large university cohorts starting at fixed points throughout the year creating peaks in demand for supervision and placements, with relative capacity outside busy periods.
This is not simply a question of increasing DPP numbers. New training models now available, including more flexible and monthly programme intakes, have the potential to distribute learner demand more evenly throughout the year. By reducing bottlenecks and spreading supervision requirements across a longer period, we can make better use of existing DPP capacity while improving access for learners who are ready to begin training.
Yet qualification is only one part of it.
Confident?
As prescribing becomes embedded into pharmacy education, we risk creating a workforce rich in prescribing credentials but limited in opportunities to use them. Success should not be measured by the number of pharmacists who qualify as prescribers. It should be measured by the number who are able to prescribe confidently and improve patient outcomes.
This is particularly important because prescribing competence develops through application. Like any clinical skill, confidence grows through experience. If pharmacists are unable to access appropriate prescribing opportunities following qualification, there is a real risk that capability and confidence will stagnate rather than develop.
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Where NHS opportunities remain limited, some pharmacists and pharmacy businesses are increasingly looking to private clinical services as a way of utilising prescribing skills and creating sustainable patient-facing opportunities. Weight management, travel health and other private services are becoming an important part of the prescribing landscape.
Struggle
Private prescribing undoubtedly has a role to play. It can improve access, support innovation and help pharmacies diversify their services. However, if the growth of pharmacist prescribing is driven primarily through private provision because NHS opportunities remain limited, we risk creating a system where access to care increasingly depends on a patient’s ability to pay. We could also see an emerging divide between pharmacists who have regular opportunities to prescribe and those who hold prescribing qualifications but struggle to use them.
Behind all of this sits a wider commercial reality facing community pharmacy.
Years of funding pressure have left many pharmacy owners trying to balance service delivery, workforce costs and long-term investment decisions. As a result, we are beginning to see very different approaches emerge across the sector.
Accelerate
Some pharmacies are investing heavily in prescribing capability, training and new clinical services. They are developing private service models, redesigning workflows and positioning themselves for a more clinically focused future. Others remain heavily reliant on traditional dispensing income, not because they lack vision or ambition, but because financial pressures have left little capacity for investment and transformation.
Read more: What will independent prescribing look like?
The result is an increasingly uneven playing field. Pharmacies with the resources to invest today may be able to accelerate ahead, while others risk being left behind despite serving equally important patient populations.
If we get this right, independent prescribing could transform both patient care and the long-term sustainability of community pharmacy. If we don’t, we risk creating a generation of qualified prescribers who have nowhere to prescribe.
Emma Seton is CEO at Buttercups Training