Community pharmacies must “do their due diligence” when deciding whether to implement independent prescribing (IP) as they “do not have the same support network as GPs”, the NPA’s vice chair has warned.
Speaking at this year’s Pharmacy Show on October 11, Sukhi Basra said it is up to individual pharmacies to decide whether they have “the capacity, the competency, and the appetite” to deliver the nationally commissioned IP service announced in the 2026/27 pharmacy contract.
And she highlighted the additional hurdles facing pharmacist IPs, including staff cover, risk assessments, audits and safeguarding.
“No longer just a pharmacist”
Basra told delegates that “you are no longer just a pharmacist, you are a clinician doing differential diagnosis”.
“Can you justify your notes? Are they clear enough to show your thought process? You can’t hide behind a Patient Group Direction,” she added.
“It’s your business decision and it takes long-term thinking”.
Read more: CPE has ‘severe reservations’ about IP funding, says chief executive
Independent Pharmacies Association chief executive Dr Leyla Hannbeck also discussed the potential barriers to implementing IPs at the Pharmacy Show.
Speaking on a panel about clinical expansion and financial stability within pharmacy, Hannbeck said the “planning, funding and the way [IP] has been rolled out has not been to the benefit of the sector”, adding that the IPA’s representatives voted against including IP in May’s funding contract because it “devalued” the pharmacy profession.
She told delegates that IP “empowers” pharmacists, but that “every pharmacy has to look at whether [IP] works for them before delivering it”.
“A shambles”
Touchwood Pharmacy Group director Bhupinder Dhaliwal also expressed his concerns about the national rollout of IP.
Dhaliwal told delegates at a talk on the “reinvention of community pharmacy” that the IP service was “shoehorned” into this year’s contract and the sector “isn’t ready for it”.
He said IP systems “have been a shambles” and that it was “politically expedient” for the government to decide to roll out a national IP service.
Read more: Funding and IT ‘critical bottlenecks’ to IP rollout, NPA report warns
It comes after Community Pharmacy England’s chief executive Janet Morrison said the body has “severe reservations about IP funding” and urged contractors to “think very carefully about signing up for the service”.
And it follows a report by the National Pharmacy Association finding that while the majority of community pharmacists are “strongly supportive” of expanding IP, they “face a system not yet built for it”.
