Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to expand the number of prescribing pharmacists.

Pharmacists prescribers are currently working across a range of services in both secondary and primary care. As part of a planned programme of expansion, additional pharmacists are being recruited to work in patient facing roles in general practice. They will be treating patients using their expert knowledge of medicines for specific disease areas and they will either be prescribers, or training to become one. As of October 2018, 876 clinical pharmacists have been recruited, and we have been informed by NHS England that it is committed to recruiting an additional 1,950 clinical pharmacists in general practice by 2020/21.