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The Royal Pharmaceutical Society is urging reforms to improve patient safety and accountability, particularly in online settings, in response to the Government’s call for evidence on private prescribing.

As private healthcare and digital prescribing continue to grow, the Society says clear standards and safeguards are needed to ensure patients receive safe, high-quality care wherever they access services.

Key recommendations include ‘joined up’ identity checks and stricter standards for online prescriptions.

Regulators should be able to clearly link healthcare professionals, companies, and platforms across systems, the RPS says. Shared digital tags would help track who is doing what, making it easier to spot and prevent rule-breaking, especially when gaps between different laws or platforms are exploited.

There should also be a minimum standard for how private and online services assess patients before prescribing certain medicines, the RPS recommends. “For higher-risk conditions, simply filling out an online questionnaire should never be enough”.

The Society is also calling for:

• Clear responsibilities for online providers: "Online healthcare companies must have legal duties, not just individual clinicians," the RPS says. "These responsibilities should include preventing illegal advertising or promotion of medicines on their platforms."
• Basic safety rules for private patient group directions: Private services using PGDs should meet minimum governance standards, including having a named clinical lead, regular audits, incident reviews, and a process for escalating serious concerns.
• Better data sharing with the NHS: Private providers should be able to share information with NHS records securely and with patient consent. The NHS should also be able to share relevant information with private providers when patients request it.
• Monitoring outcomes and risks from private care: A fair and proportionate system is needed to track the results and any harms from private healthcare, the RPS says, including prescriptions from the European Economic Area that are dispensed in the UK.