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.

Newly qualified pharmacist programme

Watch the trailer: An introduction to the Newly qualified pharmacist programme

Take a few minutes to watch our short trailer video for the CPPE Newly qualified pharmacist programme. It gives a quick overview of what pharmacists can expect and how the programme supports them in their early years of practice, helping to build confidence, develop skills, and provide support every step of the way.

Newly qualified pharmacists have described 'lack of confidence', 'decision making', 'managing professional relationships', 'being in charge', and 'adapting to the workplace' as the greatest challenges they face. We want to support newly qualified pharmacists to adapt to this new stage in their career.

The programme is designed to support newly qualified pharmacists to become better equipped to deliver safe and effective person-centred care and overcome the challenges of this new stage of their career. It will be the first step in their post-registration professional development journey and provides comprehensive learning to support them to springboard towards Independent Prescribing (IP) training.

The 12-month programme, fully funded by NHS England (NHSE) as part of their Newly Qualified Pharmacist pathway, takes a blended learning approach, offering a mix of online learning, workshops, supervised learning events and work-based support through a designated CPPE education supervisor.

Find out more about the programme

If you’re an employer or a newly qualified pharmacist and want to explore what the programme offers, start by visiting our training programme page, where you can watch our short information webinar video giving you an overview of how the programme supports newly qualified pharmacists in their early years of practice.

Eligibility

Who's eligible to apply?

The CPPE Newly qualified pharmacist programme is for pharmacists who are registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) from 2023 onwards* and are employed or locuming in any of the following settings as their main role:

  • Community pharmacy (except Boots)**
  • Integrated care boards
  • Community health services
  • Health and justice
  • General practice***
  • Care homes***
  • * Pharmacists who registered before 2023 who are returning from a career break are also eligible to apply.

Who is not eligible to apply?

** NHSE provides separate funding for pharmacists working for Boots or in hospital pharmacy. These pharmacists are not eligible to apply for the CPPE programme; they are expected to access the internal training programmes for newly qualified pharmacists and education supervision provided by those employers and funded by NHSE.

*** Pharmacists working in posts which are funded via the primary care network (PCN) additional roles reimbursement scheme are not eligible to apply for the CPPE Newly qualified pharmacist programme as they are required to enrol on the Primary Care Pharmacy Education Pathway (PCPEP).

Pharmacists who are not working in a patient-facing role are not eligible because the Newly qualified pharmacist programme is a workplace-based vocational programme.

If you are changing your area of practice, then please see our early careers pharmacists page for resources to support you to move into community pharmacy, hospital pharmacy or primary care.

Key dates

The next cohort will be in November 2025.

Bookings for the November cohort will go live in August or September. Sign up for CPPE e-news in the email preferences section of your profile for updates.


Contact newlyqualified@cppe.ac.uk if you cannot find the answers to your questions about the Newly qualified pharmacist programme on our website.

Apply