NHS priorities

Whether it’s to prepare for the next Pharmacy Quality Scheme deadline, or to increase your confidence in helping people with a learning disability, this section provides topic-specific pages that link to current NHS priorities. This section will support you in keeping your knowledge and skills up to date in order to provide high-quality pharmacy services and be service-ready.

Clinical pharmacy

Our clinical portfolio is expanding on a frequent basis, helping you to advance your knowledge and skills and deliver medicines optimisation in practice for all sectors of pharmacy. From two new focal points a year to our small group learning for hospital pharmacists – Optimise – this section focuses on clinical pharmacy, diseases and therapeutics.

Public health

The public health agenda is embedded in pharmacy, yet topics such as emergency contraception or stop smoking support are as prevalent as ever. As well as our public health workshops, use this section to access a wide range of resources to assure and maintain your competence, all underpinned by the Declaration of Competence system.

Early career pharmacists

As you start out as a pharmacist, our learning programmes can equip you with the skills to offer new services in the community, or to extend your clinical knowledge in secondary care settings. We facilitate workshops and events throughout England to encourage learning as part of a team, as well as networking with colleagues. We have also produced a series of guides to support you in your personal development.

Our wide range of resources will help you to develop the diverse knowledge, skills and behaviours to meet the outcomes outlined in the five domains of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS)'s Post-registration foundation pharmacist curriculum. This curriculum is underpinned by the RPS Foundation Framework 2019, and has been designed to support early career pharmacists to further develop their capabilities to deliver safe and effective person-centred care. The outcomes place the patient, medicines optimisation and service delivery at the heart of the pharmacist’s role.

If you are qualified as a pharmacist since 2021, you may be eligible for the CPPE Newly qualified pharmacist programme. Find out more about the programme and eligibility criteria here.

Early career pharmacists working in community pharmacy who wish to build their confidence and competence but are not eligible for the CPPE Newly qualified pharmacist programme can access the Preparing for community pharmacy practice e-course.

If you are a PCN pharmacist who has been recruited as part of the PCN additional roles reimbursement scheme, then you should apply for the Primary care pharmacy education pathway (PCPEP). More information and details of how to register can be found here

If you are an early career pharmacist aiming to work in primary care, you can work through the Preparing to work in a primary care network or GP practice e-course. In this e-course, you will learn about others’ experiences in these settings and be supported to identify your development needs, including signposting to key resources. The e-course is split into two sections. The first section provides background to the roles and signposting to relevant information and resources, to support you when considering applying for a role in a PCN or GP practice. In the second section, you will complete the self-assessment framework and use this to inform your learning needs. 

Early career pharmacists working in primary care can also work through the Primary care essentials e-course, which provides an introduction to the fundamentals of new roles for pharmacy professionals in general practice and care homes. More information about the learning programmes available to pharmacists working in primary care can be found here.

Early career pharmacists employed in hospital pharmacy can access the Orientation to hospital pharmacy e-course to support their learning and development. More information about other programmes that will support your learning and development can be found here.

To support your development, we have listed the five domains of the RPS Post-registration foundation pharmacist curriculum below and provided examples of some of the learning resources we have developed which will support you to meet the outcomes of the curriculum.

RPS Post-registration foundation curriculum