Draft Human Medicines (Authorisation by Pharmacists and Supervision by Pharmacy Technicians) Order 2025

Gregory Stafford Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2025 General Committees

[Gregory Stafford (Farnham and Bordon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this evening, Ms McVey.

As we have heard, the order before us will, broadly speaking, enable pharmacists to authorise pharmacy technicians to take primary responsibility for the preparation, assembly and supply of medicines in pharmacies and hospital aseptic facilities. Like the Minister, I thank the thousands of pharmacists across the country for the way they serve our communities, both in the community and in hospital settings.

The Conservatives will not be opposing this legislation. The current model of medical dispensing centralises responsibility upon the shoulders of the pharmacist, taking their clinical skills away from treating patients and underutilising qualified pharmacy technicians. It is clearly sensible, therefore, for both pharmacists and technicians to work at the top of their remit. That will be more rewarding for them and more efficient for the NHS.

That is why the Conservative Government launched a consultation in 2023 on retaining the need for each pharmacy to have a responsible pharmacist but enabling them to delegate more straightforward tasks to technicians. The risk of doing so is low, and it is further lowered by the fact that, in Great Britain, pharmacy technician is a regulated profession. I am therefore pleased to see that this Government have picked up the baton from the previous Conservative Government, and we welcome the new legislation in principle. However, I do have a few questions for the Minister.

First, embedded within these provisions is a total reliance on “supervision” and “authorisation”, yet clarity of definition is missing on how those will operate in practice for a pharmacist authorising a pharmacy technician to dispense medicines. I note that 76% of pharmacists in the consultation shared that anxiety. The Government assure us that there will be a transition period to enable the General Pharmaceutical Council to update its 2005 guidance on pharmacist supervision, but the length of that transition period remains uncertain.

Will the Minister confirm the length of that transition period to ensure that regulators can put the correct safeguards in place to preserve accountability when it comes to the rather loose terms of “supervision” and “authorisation”? What guidance has he provided to the regulator on those guidelines? This is a particularly important clarification, given the Government’s preference for oral authorisation, which, although flexible, leaves pharmacists without specific written record-keeping.

As the Minister knows, not all pharmacies have a pharmacy technician. In fact, NHS England’s 2023 community pharmacy workforce survey found that there were 17,666 full-time employed pharmacists and 4,324 pharmacy technicians. The impact assessment notes that smaller pharmacies are less likely to have a technician, so larger pharmacies will be able to dispense more cheaply and develop a broader service. With that in mind, what assessment has the Minister made of the effect on rural, remote or small family pharmacies? What plans does he have to monitor the effect of the consolidation on travel distances and patient choice?

With the time freed up by delegation of tasks, pharmacists will be able to provide contraception services, blood-pressure checks and vaccinations. They will also be able to expand Pharmacy First provision—another great service introduced by the previous Government, I note. However, as a new service, Pharmacy First was introduced within a fixed funding envelope, so what plans does the Minister have to expand that service?

Finally, what discussions has the Minister had with his counterparts in Northern Ireland regarding the establishment of a regulated profession of pharmacy technicians there?

As Conservatives, we welcome improving efficiency and giving patients faster access to appointments and prescriptions. For those reasons, the changes are to be welcomed. I conclude by paying tribute to officials in the Department, and organisations outside this House, who have worked hard to get these updated provisions before us today.