Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the delivery plan for recovering access to primary care published on 9 May, what steps they are taking to ensure that the training provided to pharmacists and pharmacy staff equips them with the necessary skills to prescribe antibiotics.

The delivery plan for recovering access to primary care will enable community pharmacies to supply prescription-only medicines for seven common conditions under Patient Group Directions (PGDs). PGDs are written instructions enabling certain health care professionals to supply or administer medicines to patients without a prescription. Any pharmacy offering this service will have to declare they are competent to deliver the service and pharmacists supplying medicines under PGDs must have undertaken the training set out in those specific PGDs.

Antimicrobial stewardship is a priority for the Government and NHS England. Action to embed antimicrobial stewardship principles in community pharmacy teams has formed part of the Pharmacy Quality Scheme in the National Health Service contractual arrangements.

The supply of antibiotics under the new service will be monitored by collecting and analysing data about the supply of medicines, including antibiotics, in the same way that data is collected on prescribing in general practice.

In addition, in May, the National Institute for Health and Care Research issued a research call for a robust wrap around evaluation of the Pharmacy First service to understand its impact, safety, cost effectiveness, acceptability and implications for antibiotic use and antimicrobial resistance.