The Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE) has taken responsibility for training 250 clinical pharmacists to work in GP practices as part of an NHS England pilot.

CPPE pledged to deliver both online and face-to-face training courses to provide all pharmacists involved in the pilot with a “wide range of skills” on Friday (July 10). The announcement came after NHS England revealed last week that it had allocated £15 million to partially fund pharmacists to work in practices over three years.

Around 250 trainees would be educated in groups of 30, and their training would begin with a four-day “residential boot camp” focusing on leadership, consultation skills, medical examination techniques and “medicines optimisation in practice”, CPPE said. 

Study days, learning in small groups and independent learning would also be part of the programme, which will run in partnership with NHS England and Health Education England, CPPE said. The training provider has already launched a 13-week online course on the “fundamentals of working with GPs”, with another scheduled to launch in the autumn.

Specific skills

As well as general prescribing and medicines optimisation skills, the training would also focus on specific issues such as antibiotic stewardship and reviewing the medicines of patients with learning disabilities, CPPE stressed.

It would work with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, the UK Clinical Pharmacy Association, Pharmacy Voice and higher education institutions to provide a “wide range" of  study days on topics such as leadership and clinical development, CPPE said.

“A key aim will be to develop the clinical pharmacists to support more effective care across hospital, general practice and community pharmacy interfaces,” it added.

CPPE director Christopher Cutts said the focus on “patient-facing services and medicines optimisation” was a “significant moment in the training of a new generation of clinical pharmacists based in general practice”.

Although NHS England initially said it planned to recruit “around 300” pharmacists to work in GP practices, it has since lowered this estimate to 250. Pharmacists have until September 17 to apply for the pilot by downloading a pack from the NHS England website.