Your pharmacist can provide treatment for some prescription medicine, if needed, for seven common conditions, without you seeing a GP.
Highly trained pharmacists can assess, treat, and if needed, provide some prescription medicine for the following without needing to see a GP:
- sinusitis (aged 12 years and over)
- Sore throat (aged 5 years and over)
- Earache (aged 1 to 17 years)
- Infected insect bites (aged 1 year and over)
- Impetigo (aged 1 year and over)
- Shingles (aged 18 years and over) and urinary tract infections (UTIs) (women aged 16 to 64 years)
In addition, your pharmacist can now provide you with the emergency contraceptive pill (morning after pill) for free, without you seeing a GP. They can also discuss long-term contraception options with you at the same time.
Available at the heart of local communities, community pharmacy teams have the right clinical training to give people the health advice they need, with no appointment necessary and private consultations available. Community pharmacists will direct patients to other local services where necessary.
Think pharmacy first and get seen by your local pharmacy team. For more information, visit nhs.uk/thinkpharmacyfirst
Access more information on pharmacies via a new website
A new website has been launched to provide information about several NHS services that pharmacies in England are providing. The website (communitypharmacy.org.uk) provides information on the following three NHS
services:
- Pharmacy First Service;
- Blood Pressure Check Service; and
- Pharmacy Contraception Service.
There is a separate page for each of the services on the website providing information about the three services and there are links to the NHS website to find a pharmacy that offers the service. The website also explains that patients have a right to choose which pharmacy they use to receive NHS services.