NHS England publish IP guidance
NHS England has published two documents relating to the assurance of Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (CPCF) clinical services and the commissioning of NHS prescribing services in community pharmacies.
Professional Assurance Framework
The first document – a professional assurance framework – applies to all CPCF clinical services and outlines the best practice guidance for all pharmacists and pharmacy technicians involved in the provision of NHS commissioned community pharmacy clinical services in England.
The document also contains expectations of pharmacy owners too. Any elements of the best practice guidance where pharmacy owners may not yet be compliant are likely to relate to the provision of NHS prescribing services. Those elements of the guidance only apply to pharmacies where NHS prescribing services are commissioned.
Professional assurance framework for delivering NHS community pharmacy clinical services
Pharmacy owners, and pharmacists and pharmacy technicians working in community pharmacies should all read the Professional Assurance Framework to assess whether they already comply with the best practice set out in the document and to identify any gaps in compliance that they can work towards meeting in their professional practice.
Commissioning guidance for ICBs
The second document provides guidance to Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) to apply when they are commissioning prescribing services from community pharmacies, both as local commissioning and the addition of prescribing into Advanced services within the CPCF (as was announced earlier this year):
Commissioning guidance for community pharmacy prescribing-based services
The document includes a range of expectations of pharmacy owners, where they are commissioned to provide an NHS prescribing service at a pharmacy.
As such, the document should be read by any pharmacy owners that provide an NHS commissioned prescribing service from their pharmacy or are planning to provide such a service in the future. Those pharmacy owners should then consider what steps they need to take to be compliant with the expectations of pharmacy owners set out in the document.
Expectations of ICBs
Alongside the publication of the two documents, NHS England has also written to ICBs setting out their expectations of ICBs in relation to establishing safe, effective and sustainable prescribing-based national services within community pharmacy. This will include ICBs agreeing and implementing an operational governance process for overseeing prescribing provision across community pharmacies in their geographic footprint.
Letter to ICBs: Preparing for prescribing in national community pharmacy services
The letter also highlights that NHS England will shortly share plans with ICBs for a Prescribing Development Programme to support locally commissioned, neighbourhood-based care models for community pharmacy.
CPE’s view on the guidance documents
NHS England sought our views on the draft versions of the two documents during the last round of negotiations. The Committee carefully reviewed them and concluded that the requirements in the documents did represent best practice, much of which most pharmacy owners would already comply with.
The requirements related to the introduction of prescribing into the CPCF are appropriate and will support the safe introduction of prescribing into NHS community pharmacy services, but some elements may not be straightforward to implement and in discussions with DHSC and NHS England, we have suggested that ICBs will need to provide practical support in relation to some of these elements, such as supporting the provision of clinical supervision and peer support networks at a local level.
As we said at the time of the announcement of the 2026/27 CPCF agreement, we are not persuaded that sufficient investment is being made to enable the full and effective introduction of prescribing, given the workload, enhanced clinical responsibility, clinical governance and infrastructure requirements that it will entail. The publication of these two documents now allows pharmacy owners to make their own assessment of the costs associated with the clinical governance of prescribing services.
Read more about our views on the addition of prescribing to the CPCF and the funding for this
