Pharmacy

The Chief Pharmaceutical Officer’s strategy for pharmaceutical care and services Achieving Excellence in Pharmaceutical Care was published in August 2017. We are continuing to align with the priorities identified in Achieving Excellence to enable NHS pharmaceutical care transformation. 

NHS Pharmaceutical Services are provided under NHS arrangements with local and high street community pharmacies. These arrangements are managed by health boards who are responsible for ensuring the communities they serve have appropriate access to NHS Pharmaceutical Care Services.

Community pharmacy contractors provide a range of NHS services for Health Boards. There are over 1250 community pharmacies in Scotland. Their core national services include:

dispensing prescriptions
NHS Pharmacy First Scotland, providing advice and treatment for many minor ailments and common clinical conditions. In addition, community pharmacists who are qualified independent prescribers can provide a wider range of treatments.
Public Health Service, including stop smoking services and access to emergency contraception
Medicines: Care and Review service, providing support to people with long term conditions

Community pharmacies can also provide a range of local services on behalf of their health board to meet the needs of its local population. 

Together all of these services play an important part by:

improving healthcare access for the public as they usually do not need an appointment to see their pharmacist
decreasing workload for GP and nursing colleagues therefore freeing up their time to see patients with more serious complaints
making the best use of the workforce by more fully using the skills of community pharmacists

Financial settlements

We negotiate annually with Community Pharmacy Scotland (CPS) to establish financial arrangements that support Scotland's community pharmacy network while balancing taxpayer obligations. The settlement includes a Global Sum for NHS pharmaceutical care services and medicine dispensing reimbursement under the Scottish Drug Tariff.

Workforce

Registration as a pharmacist requires a 4-year Master of Pharmacy (MPharm) programme plus one year of foundation training. From 2026, all newly qualified pharmacists will be independent prescribers upon registration. Existing pharmacists can also train to become independent prescribers. Read more on NHS Education for Scotland

The Chief Pharmaceutical Officer established a National Pharmacy Workforce Forum to look at the workforce challenges for the profession, bringing together stakeholders from pharmacy education and pharmacy service provision to set a strategic workforce plan for the profession.

Medicine shortages

Medicine shortages can occur due to manufacturing difficulties, raw material supply issues, or sudden changes in prescribing practice, particularly when implemented across multiple regions. Manufacturers and wholesalers forecast production months in advance and cannot easily increase output without advance notice of changes.

Medicine supply and legislation are reserved to the UK Government. We receive regular updates on supply disruptions and advise NHS Scotland on managing shortages, discontinuations and other supply issues. NHS Scotland has robust processes for managing supply problems, typically using alternative products. We maintain close dialogue with health boards to manage medicine supply disruptions.

Officials from the four UK Administrations work together to manage medicine shortages. The Chief Pharmaceutical Officer sits on the UK-wide Medicines Shortage Response Group (MSRG), which identifies and coordinates responses to shortages and advises clinicians on therapeutic alternatives.

Medicines related communications to health boards

We have several communication channels to communicate information about specific medicine issues to health boards, GPs and community pharmacists.

National Patient Safety Alerts (NatPSAs)

NatPSAs are official notices issued when a medicine defect or a supply issue presents a risk of serious harm or death. They outline actions that must be taken by health boards and/or healthcare professionals to reduce the risk of death or disability.

Medicines Supply Alert Notices (MSANs)

MSANs inform health boards and healthcare professionals of medicine supply disruptions. MSANS will advise on alternative strengths or formulations, or generic or therapeutic alternatives that can be prescribed, when a particular medicine is in short supply.

Serious Shortage Protocols (SSPs)

SSPs enable community pharmacists to supply specified medicines following a protocol without new prescriptions or prescriber authorisation. They are only used in serious shortages where they would help manage supply.

Medicines Recalls – (Drug) Alerts

A medicines recall alert is issued when the manufacturer of a medicine or the MHRA becomes aware of a specific product defect. There are four different types of medicines recall classifications, and classifications indicate timescales for dissemination.

Electronic prescribing

We support the Digital Prescribing and Dispensing Pathways (DPDP) Programme. DPDP will remove 'wet ink' signatures from prescriptions, enabling electronic prescribing and dispensing without paper prescriptions. This will bring several benefits:

an easier and more efficient way to order and receive prescriptions
safer, more efficient and faster processes for prescribers and dispensers
multi-professional and multi-location digital prescribing - which supports new service models
support for climate sustainability by reducing the use, transport, scanning and destruction of paper

Contact

Email: PharmacyTeam@gov.scot

Telephone: 0300 244 4000

Post:

Pharmacy and Medicines Division
Scottish Government
1R, St Andrews House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG

Information