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Newly qualified pharmacists are now independent prescribers but most of them still can't update the one record that matters. Sasa Jankovic reports…

From this September, every pharmacist entering the GPhC register does so as an independent prescriber. It's the moment the profession has been building towards since the 2021 education reforms, changing what a community pharmacist is expected to do to include diagnosing, prescribing and managing conditions within their competence from day one of their career.

Yet, this highlights an uncomfortable position for community pharmacists in England, who are unable to write into their patients’ records.

Access history

Read/write access to the GP record via GP Connect was written into the 2025/26 GP contract, and from 1 October 2025 general practices were contractually required to switch on both Access Record and Update Record functionality, letting pharmacy teams view coded GP data and file consultation summaries directly into the patient's notes.

As things stand, this means read access allows pharmacists to view essential GP patient record data, including medications, recent blood test results, and observations (such as blood pressure, BMI, and smoking status) at the point of an NHS consultation.

However, write access functionality is primarily limited to ⁠GP Connect Update Record, which allows pharmacists to automatically send digital consultation summaries (like Pharmacy First or blood pressure checks) back to the GP workflow but does not grant pharmacists free rein to manually edit the GP medical record itself.

Full read-write access is still only available in specific pilot schemes or for limited purposes.

Connected expectations

This lack of access is, understandably, worrying for pharmacist prescribers, especially since the announcement that independent prescribing is set to be added to the Pharmacy First service.

“When a patient accesses any NHS service, whether that’s in a GP practice or a pharmacy, they expect that the clinician providing their care will be able to see their health record and be able to update it”, says Leanne Hackett, product director at Cegedim Rx, the first technology provider to make GP Connect Access Record and GP Connect Update Record available to community pharmacies.

“That’s why the launch of GP Connect was so important. It aims to bridge the gaps between community pharmacy and primary care until we have a clear roadmap for the delivery of a single patient record.

“We work with many pharmacies who have developed great, close working relationships with GP practices – referring well, supporting one another and both benefiting from services like Pharmacy First. But we need to make sure that surrounding those relationships is the right digital infrastructure to ensure vital information is accessible and sharable.” 

Consultation concerns

Pharmacy organisations across the board are hearing from their members about what this lack of read-write access means.

The Royal College of Pharmacy (RCPharm) president Tase Oputu says members are clear that want digital systems that support joined-up working across healthcare, saying: “They tell us that limited access to patient information can mean spending time contacting GP practices to clarify medicines or clinical information, rather than being able to make timely clinical decisions."

Numark’s members are saying that limited access to patient records “creates inefficiencies and can make it more difficult to deliver seamless care”, according to chairman Harry McQuillan.

“When pharmacist interventions aren't routinely visible within the wider patient record, there's a risk that valuable clinical information isn't immediately available to other healthcare professionals”, he says.

NPA chair Olivier Picard runs four pharmacies in Berkshire and Buckinghamshire and has his own real-world examples of the risks of the lack of read-write access.

“The NPA is calling for much greater read-write access to the record because that is the sensible thing to do”, he says, “but I’ve also witnessed the problems firsthand.

“We offer a lot of private services, and patients who are getting weight loss medication and travel vaccinations and even meningitis B vaccinations often can’t tell us what they’ve already had – especially if they’ve accessed these services elsewhere – and since the pharmacy team cannot write into their GP records, there is no way we can add to this information for the patient.” 

Future solutions

One initiative coming down the tracks that could help is the Single Patient Record (SPR) – a secure digital system proposed under the ⁠NHS Modernisation Bill that combines fragmented health and care information into one accessible place and requires health and care providers to share patient data, giving NHS staff a complete medical history across various services – although this is not due until at least 2028.

McQuillan calls the ambition behind a single patient record “encouraging”, but stresses that “the success of any new system and improved patient safety will depend on ensuring community pharmacy is fully integrated from the outset as an integral part of the NHS clinical team rather than an afterthought.”

Coupled with the ability to free up time with hub and spoke dispensing, the SPR could give pharmacists the capacity, and clinical recording capability, they need to spend even more time with patients. But is time running out for independent community pharmacies to get on board with hub and spoke, now the legislation has changed to allow dispensing between different retail pharmacy businesses?

Mark Pedder, the commercial director of HubRx, says: “While there’s no cut-off date for pharmacies to take advantage of hub and spoke dispensing now the legislation has changed, that doesn’t mean there isn’t any urgency.

“Independent pharmacies face rising financial, clinical and dispensing pressures, and the very real risk that if they don’t change how they work, they won’t be able to survive.”

Picard, on the other hand, says the NPA’s advice is that hub and spoke is not for everyone.

“It's the role of the NPA to support members, should they want to go on that journey”, he says, “but we don't believe that hub and spoke is going to create the efficiencies that the sector or the government hopes would be delivered – particularly for independents with a single community pharmacy.

“You're shifting costs but those costs will remain if you don’t have enough work to fill the time you’re saving. We want patients to continue visiting their pharmacies, we want them to think pharmacy first, and we want to make sure that the community pharmacy teams can make every contact count.”

As community pharmacy continues to take on a greater clinical role, ensuring pharmacists can both access and contribute to patient records will be essential to delivering truly joined-up care.

Using technology to free up time

As a sector, we are continuing to experience rapid change, with community pharmacists taking on increasing clinical responsibility, says Numark chairman Harry McQuillan…

The sector is squeezed with operational pressures, workforce challenges and financial constraints on one side, and increasing patient expectation to deliver a broad range of NHS services on the other.

If we don’t find ways to tackle the challenge, we risk limiting the progress of an industry with the potential to overhaul how we access healthcare. Community pharmacy has a clear capacity problem, and while technology isn’t going to fully solve it, it presents a real opportunity.

AI and automation shouldn’t simply be new tools to adopt, but as part of a bigger conversation about how pharmacy work is organised. The most important question is how to shift work to get the maximum benefit from automation. 

Of course, there are clear compliance issues, and the GPhC’s recent position on AI is reassuring. Professional accountability and clinical responsibility need to lie with pharmacy professionals. This is why it’s important to use AI and automation in a way that integrates with the workflow of the pharmacy, freeing up time for the tasks that require pharmacist judgement.  

There’s work that must remain human – patient conversations, safeguarding, empathy and reassurance and clinical judgement cannot be automated and replaced. But technology can be used to free up pharmacist capacity for these tasks, which are at the heart of community healthcare. 

Beneath this, there’s work that can be digitally supported but still needs pharmacist involvement, including appointment scheduling, patient recalls, stock alerts and forecasting. 

Finally, there’s a layer of work that can be automated to reduce manual pressure – inventory management, predictable repeat workflows, routine admin processes, repeat dispensing assembly. The risk is that technology is introduced without redesigning the workflow around it. In that situation, AI is just another system to log into, another programme to manage.

To make it truly effective, it’s not about how much work AI can take off the plate but how we redesign work so that professional judgement is focused where it matters most. 

‘Hub and spoke’ dispensing is a clear example of how automation can support community pharmacy by rethinking where routine work is best carried out. Rather than requiring every stage of the dispensing process to happen within the pharmacy, the model allows elements of medicines assembly to be managed through a centralised, highly automated hub. The local pharmacy or ‘the spoke’ retains the patient relationship, professional oversight and clinical accountability. 

Automation is not being used to replace the pharmacist, but to reduce the volume of repetitive operational tasks to free up time for patient-facing care.

By creating a more efficient route for routine dispensing activity, ‘hub and spoke’ models can help release capacity in the pharmacy team, giving pharmacists and their colleagues more headroom to focus on clinical services, medicines advice and the personalised support that patients value most. 

At Numark, our own recent development of a hub and spoke proposition with Adhera Dispensing and Phoenix is helping members create operational capacity rather than complexity. That capacity can then be used for tasks where the real value lies. Clinical consultations, vaccinations, support for patients with long-term conditions. Tasks that make the most impact to patients. 

As well as assigning it to the right places, we also need to upskill the pharmacy workforce to be able to use these tools effectively. Digital literacy and technology skills need to be invested in alongside clinical development. Our sector is willing to do more, and we’ve proven before we can rise to new challenges.

Now is a pivotal moment to capitalise on the opportunity AI and automation present and, ultimately, improve care and support for patients. Pharmacists will always be central to pharmacy, but with the right tools, can enable them to be central to healthcare as a whole. 

Tell us about your experiences with IT and technology by emailing ICP editor Neil Trainis at neil.trainis@1530.com