Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many of the 1,500 clinical pharmacists pledged in the GP Forward View will have been brought in by the end of each financial year until April 2020.

NHS England has advised that the rollout of the additional 1,500 clinical pharmacists, as published in its General Practice Forward View, is still in the planning stage.

As part of this work, NHS England is profiling the numbers for the rollout but cannot say at this time how many will be rolled out over each year.

In July 2015 NHS England announced a £15 million pilot scheme to part fund and support general practices to recruit and employ clinical pharmacists to work alongside general practitioners (GPs) as part of the clinical team. In November 2015 this funding was more than doubled to £31 million, due to an overwhelmingly positive response from GP surgeries. These pharmacists will help to ease current pressures in general practice by working with patients who have long term conditions and others with multiple medications. Having a pharmacist on site will mean that patients who receive care from their general practice will be able to benefit from the expertise in medicines that these pharmacists provide.