Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure a sufficient number of Designated Prescribing Practitioners to mentor all new non-medical prescribers.

NHS England is investing in training for independent prescribers, as well as initiatives to support the development and safe practice of designated prescribing practitioners (DPPs) and educational supervisors. A DPP is a healthcare professional with legal independent prescribing rights who will mentor and supervise the pharmacist during the period of learning in practice. This will ensure the National Health Service is ready to support and mentor foundation trainee pharmacists from the 2025/26 academic year, alongside training existing pharmacists that are learning to be independent prescribers.

Reforms to pharmacist education and training will allow for the development of prescriber pharmacists from the point of registration from 2026. This will enable a career-long focus on prescriber services and an associated expansion of the DPP workforce, to support multi-professional teams and the expansion of cross-sector prescribing services.

NHS England has funded 3,000 training places for existing pharmacists to become independent prescribers, and is training 1,000 DPP and educational supervisors to support the training of pharmacist independent prescribers.