What conditions can community pharmacist IPs prescribe for?

England’s prescribing pathfinder sites have made local decisions about which prescribing area/s to focus on. These include common conditions, hypertension, respiratory, contraception, cardiovascular disease/lipids, dermatology, antidepressant review, women’s health, anticoagulation and sexual health.

Greater Manchester’s plan for its pathfinder pharmacies began with minor ailments, then added hypertension and respiratory care.

Scotland’s Pharmacy First Plus service and Wales’s Pharmacy Independent Prescribing Service also clearly define the scope of prescribing.

Independent prescribing in community pharmacy forms part of planned role development that builds on pharmacists’ existing skills and experience.

Some consultations may involve an initial presentation requiring diagnosis; others might be for a condition where a diagnosis has previously been made and continuation or a treatment change is required.

Pharmacists already use clinical reasoning and decision-making skills in consultations for common conditions and have further developed these skills in Pharmacy First-type services.

The shift to independent prescribing will necessitate further enhancement of these skills (see Table 1).