Developing your career

The aim of this e-course is to build the confidence and competence of pharmacists who are planning to apply and train as independent prescribers.

The course is made up of three main components:

• A self-directed e-course and self-assessment framework.
• A mandatory online workshop to support you to review your self-assessment of competencies and develop a personal development plan (PDP).
• An optional online workshop to support your readiness for academic writing and reflective practice.

You will need to pick one of the mandatory online workshops to attend at a date and time that works for you. This will trigger your e-course booking.  To activate your e-course booking you need to go to your Learning record and click "Course access information".

Once you have identified your own personal learning needs by completing the self-assessment framework, the different topic areas in this programme will support you to:

• describe how your knowledge, skills and experience have evolved since your initial training as a pharmacist?
• recognise your strengths and transferable skills which you can build on that are relevant to your independent prescribing training
• identify your learning needs, and the resources and learning opportunities to enable you to meet them
• develop your skills as a reflective practitioner and apply these to your practice
• build a powerful personal and professional support network to support you during your independent prescribing training and ongoing prescribing practice
• create a personal development plan for your short, medium and longer-term development needs to prepare for undertaking an independent prescribing course.

Pharmacists who are planning to apply and/or start their independent prescriber training can apply to take part.

Further information for newly qualified pharmacists

We would recommend that you enrol on the CPPE Newly qualified pharmacist programme as the first step in your post-registration professional development journey if you meet the eligibility criteria.  

The Preparing to train as an independent prescriber programme is included as one of the modules of the Newly qualified pharmacist programme. While completing the Newly qualified pharmacist programme, you would agree the optimal time to book onto the Preparing to train as an independent prescriber module with your education supervisor. 

Newly qualified pharmacists who are not eligible for the CPPE Newly qualified pharmacist programme can access the NHS England Newly Qualified Pharmacist pathway and could complete the Preparing to train as an independent prescriber programme as a stand-alone course.

Pharmacists on the Primary care pharmacy education pathway (PCPEP) are not able to book this learning, since the pathway prepares pharmacists to train as an independent prescriber.