Letting pharmacists prescribe would ease the strain on the NHS

The NHS is facing its own winter of discontent: A&E waiting times are surging, GP availability is plunging and a strike is brewing. The Communication Workers’ Union (CWU), says Britain is facing a ‘de facto general strike’: from nurses to ambulance drivers to doctors – even in emergency departments and cancer centres – as they ask for pay rises. 

Today the Sunday Telegraph reports that (privately-run) pharmacies may be called in to help and given power to prescribe for simple conditions to help ease pressures in A&E departments. I argue in the current edition of The Spectator how they could easily help plug plug the gap that exists between GPs and A&Es by prescribing for minor ailments.

Pharmacists in Scotland are slightly ahead of the curve, with the Pharmacy First programme allowing them to prescribe, albeit to a limited degree, antibiotics, antivirals and even some steroids. Former health secretary Sajid Javid wanted to introduce a similar system in England but backlash from No.