Corrinne Burns

2 weeks ago | pharmaceutical-journal.com | Corrinne Burns

Community Pharmacy Scotland (CPS) has accepted the Scottish government’s offer for the first part of its financial negotiations for community pharmacy in 2025/2026. In a statement, published on 1 May 2025, CPS said that under the offer, which focuses on reimbursement arrangements, the guaranteed minimum for reimbursement will rise to £120m — an increase from £110m in 2024/2025. In 2024/2025, the guaranteed minimum for reimbursement also rose by £10m — from £100m to £110m.

2 weeks ago | pharmaceutical-journal.com | Corrinne Burns

Mental illness has long been a significant cause of sickness absence among NHS hospital staff. NHS data for England, published in March 2025, show that in November 2024, more than one-quarter (26.6%) of all full-time equivalent (FTE) days that were lost owing to sickness were related to anxiety, stress, depression or other psychiatric illness. This was the most reported reason for sickness that month, which accounted for over 630,300 FTE days lost.

2 weeks ago | pharmaceutical-journal.com | Corrinne Burns

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) is launching a ‘Prescribing development programme’ to help pharmacists strengthen and expand their prescribing skills. The programme is due to start on 23 June 2025 and will be available to RPS members, allowing them to access flexible, bite-sized learning formats, such as podcasts, blogs, webinars and e-learning via RPS Learn.

3 weeks ago | pharmaceutical-journal.com | Corrinne Burns

The pharmacy regulator should consider the possibility of reduced annual registration fees for certain cohorts of pharmacists, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) has said in response to a General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) consultation. The RPS also noted that the regulator’s proposed fee increase of 6% is above the current rate of inflation and that the “difficult current financial situation” many pharmacists are experiencing means that “any increase must be minimised”.

4 weeks ago | pharmaceutical-journal.com | Corrinne Burns

A report by the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) has called for homecare medicines services to move to a fully electronic prescription service and end the use of paper prescriptions. In the report, published on 17 April 2025, the regulator suggested there would be “significant benefits from moving away entirely from paper-based systems, and making sure there is compatibility between the digital systems being used”.