Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of prescriptions were written by pharmacists in the financial year 2022-23.

The National Health Service does not currently commission prescribing services from community pharmacists but pharmacists working in other NHS settings, including general practices, can prescribe on the NHS.

The following table shows the total number of items prescribed in England and the number of items prescribed by pharmacists in 2022:

Source: NHS Business Services Authority

We are working on increasing the number of pharmacist prescribers and from 2026 all newly graduated pharmacists will have a prescribing qualification. This year NHS England will pilot how NHS prescribing could work in community pharmacy. Pharmacists in other setting including general practice and hospital already prescribe.