Boots Pharmacists to Receive Bursary for Independent Prescribing Course This Year

​

With huge pressure on the government to fund pharmacists across the UK to complete their Independent Course, it comes as welcome news that a well known community/in store brand is offering a healthy number of spots on a funded course.

​Boots have shown great generosity to their pharmacists by offering a bursary to 500 of their staff to complete their PIP course (Pharmacist Independent Prescriber). The bursary will be an amount of up to £7,000 plus time away from the Pharmacy to complete their training.

​

Boot shave announced a private prescribing consultation (Pharmacy First Plus) which is charged to the patient at £14.99 plus the prescription charge for the medication likewise charged to the patient/customer. With waiting times to see a GP increasing, the strategy is that more people use this private service to secure medication quicker.

​

Funding was originally announced by the Health and Education England (HHE), who declared an investment of £15.9m to support the growth of frontline Pharmacy Professionals over the next four years. This announcement was originally made in November 2021 and recently announced that all MPharm graduates will be Independent Prescribers by 2026.

​

The method of having all Pharmacists practicing as IP’s will take a large workload away from GP’s and Hospitals across the UK, whilst also saving huge amounts of money in the long run. The current budget is based on pharmacists gaining further access to develop their clinical skills and achieving their prescribing course.

​

HHE have already invested in 237 Pharmacists to complete their IP course at the first half of 2022. They are seeking further funding to be confirmed for another batch of pharmacists to complete their IP course.

​

The Welsh Government have set aside £3m to train their pharmacists across 2022/2023. Likewise, Scotland have agreed to design a formal career pathway designed to increase the number of IP trained Pharmacists.

​

At present the current funding is set aside for practice pharmacists to complete the course, which currently leaves community pharmacists to fully fund the courses by themselves. To confirm that boots is funding 500 of their pharmacists to complete the IP course is a huge incentive to their staff. Boots currently employs more than 53,000 across 2,247 stores so securing this funding could be tough. Yet still an incredibly opportunity for those who secure it.

​

We’re curious to see we whether more community pharmacy organisations do the same as Boots and offer ‘x’ amount of their pharmacists to complete the IP course. Who do you think will be next?