Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help ensure that pathfinder sites in the NHS Community Pharmacy Independent Prescribing Pathfinder Programme are able to provide services without interruption from December 2025 onwards.

The Pathfinder programme will conclude in December 2025. NHS England is working with system leaders and stakeholders, using learning from the Pathfinder to design independent prescribing in future community pharmacy clinical services.

NHS England aims to publish a commissioning framework for systems to integrate independent prescribing into community pharmacy post-pathfinder. Any national funding for a prescribing service in community pharmacy will be considered as part of the Spending Review for 2026/27 to 2028/29.