ORIEL Update from NW NHS
Dear Colleagues,
As you know, from 2025/26 all trainee pharmacists graduating against the new GPhC standards will require access to a prescribing learning setting and designated prescribing practitioner (DPP).
We recognise that this presents a challenge for a large number of community pharmacy employers, whilst prescribing services are not yet commonplace.
Across the North West, we have been working collaboratively, to try and support you with addressing this gap. The LPCs, ICB medicines management teams, NHS England, and the Primary Care Training Hubs have been working to generate and identify capacity from primary and secondary care providers who may be in a position deliver prescribing rotations.
NHS England have just completed a process of confirming community pharmacy employer preparedness for the 2025/26 training year. If you did not complete this survey in the last month, and have a programme listed in Oriel, please get in touch with england.wtepharmacy.nw@nhs.net to confirm your current status.
At the minute, it is unknown which programmes within Oriel will fill and therefore it is difficult to match individual pharmacies with the prescribing rotations that have been identified.
Please continue to work on identifying routes to delivering prescribing education within your training programme(s) – once you have a trainee allocated, if you are still in need of an external prescribing rotation, primary care training hub and/or ICB will endeavour to support you with identifying a partner, however there is no guarantee of a prescribing rotation being available.
Please note, the NHS England training grant for trainee pharmacists, which will be £26,500 for the 2025/26 cohort, is a contribution to all elements of that trainee pharmacist’s training. For community pharmacies accessing a prescribing rotation from another healthcare provider, a proportion of this funding can be used to support this. There is no set tariff for this but conversations within the region and with other regions have suggested a payment in the region of £1500 is expected for the delivery of a prescribing rotation.
