The master's degree-level courses cover five “strands” – “service improvement, extended skills, patient activation, delivering medicines optimisation, and NHS England priorities” – HEE said in a statement last week (January 25).

Courses such as “applied therapeutics”, “mental health” and “introduction to pharmacy public health services” amount to different credits, and pharmacists can choose to study a “single or range of modules”, with up to 60 credits – equivalent to a postgraduate certificate – per learner available.

The post-registration training will be offered across all five NHS England regions, via De Montfort University, the University of Manchester, the University of Bath, the University of Keele and the University of Exeter, from February 2018 to March 2019, HEE explained.

The online modules “offer a choice of flexible studying, reducing the need for travel”, HEE said. “Some face-to-face learning and workplace assessments” will be involved, it added. See university providers' websites for more details.

Professor Wendy Reid, executive director of education and quality at HEE, said the training is “part of our broader agenda to drive workforce transformation across the NHS to support locally delivered integrated care models”.

The training will be funded by the Pharmacy Integration Fund and is one of HEE’s eight training “strands” to better integrate pharmacists and pharmacy technicians “into wider primary care as part of new multidisciplinary healthcare teams”.

Pharmacists already enrolled on HEE’s 'Integrating pharmacy into urgent care’, 'Medicine optimisation in care homes', and 'Clinical pharmacists in general practice' programmes are not eligible to access the post-registration training provision, “to avoid duplication of the content”, HEE stressed.

Locum pharmacists must have sponsorship support from a pharmacy to access the modules, HEE added, and the funding does not cover “supervision or remuneration for time on the course”.

NHS England’s deputy chief pharmaceutical officer Dr Bruce Warner said the range of training initiatives available from HEE will “enable [pharmacists and pharmacy technicians] to spend more time delivering clinical and public health services”.

Applications are now open via the university providers, and more information is available on the HEE website.

See how community pharmacists reacted to the training announcement on Twitter below.

“Entirely in favour of professional development, but…”

Masters level courses for community pharmacists, funded through NHS England’s Pharmacy Integration Fund (PhIF), to help them make the best use of their skills as part of multidisciplinary NHS teams) are now open for applications. #pharmacyintegrationhttps://t.co/0KK5pjMj7w

— Bruce Warner (@BruceWarner) January 25, 2018

I'm entirely in favour of professional development. But what services will @NHSEngland commission from these skilled up pharmacists?

— Graham Phillips (@grahamsphillips) January 27, 2018

Every pharmacist should have the training for equal standard of service irrespective of who's on duty

— Cathy Cooke (@Cleverestcookie) January 25, 2018

Good work. hope all pharmacists would take a little more interest in mental health. It’s about time there was MUR and NMS for mental health starting with psychosis &building on that. It’s crazy that you can do a diabetic check but can’t help himwith MH issue. Person centred care?

— Hemant Patel (@Hemant1Patel) January 26, 2018

Brilliant but to fully integrate Community Pharmacists in primary care we need Read/Write access to full GP record + access to funded Clinically Enhanced Prescribing courses. With additonal training you can unlock 12k pharmacies as Walk-In Centres- imagine the workload reduction!

— Bobby Sandhu (@bobsingh89) January 27, 2018

Morning Keith. I welcome this training opportunity however, (and this may be an obvious question) Why do NHSE want to invest public funds into something with no obvious payback outcome? What is the end goal of this training? Meds Optimisation within a CP setting?

— David Gallier-Harris (@GallierHarris) January 26, 2018