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.

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e-course

Structured medication review


  • Released: 03/2018
  • Reviewed: 06/2023
  • Study time: 48h:0m
  • Start date: 02/10/2023

If you are currently, or have been, enrolled on the NHS England funded Clinical Pharmacists in General Practice, Medicines Optimisation in Care Homes or Primary Care Pharmacy Education Pathways you should not enrol on this SMR e-course. The reason for this is that the learning on these pathways will already have given you the skills and knowledge you need to provide SMRs under the specification of the Network DES.

Please note, to provide Structured Medication Reviews under the terms of the Network Contract Directed Enhanced Service (DES) "pharmacists must have completed – or at least be enrolled on – the Primary Care Pharmacy Educational Pathway (PCPEP) or a similar training programme that includes independent prescribing" and so participating in this e-course alone will not enable you to comply with this requirement.

The aim of this course is to equip you with the knowledge, skills and behaviours that you need to begin undertaking person-centred structured medication reviews.

Click here for more information on course dates: e-courses : CPPE

This Structured medication review e-course is no longer associated with an e-assessment. The original e-assessment has been withdrawn and we are currently undertaking a review process in order to determine the most suitable approach to support you to evaluate your learning as a result of undertaking the e-course. Please refer back to this page for updates.

Learning outcomes

On completion of all aspects of this learning programme you should be able to:

  • describe the importance of shared decision making and recognise its value in the structured medication review process
  • identify gaps in the information needed to undertake structured medication review
  • use evidence-based reference sources appropriately to support clinical decision making
  • demonstrate clinical knowledge of the most commonly used medicines in the treatment of long-term conditions
  • develop an appropriate level of clinical judgement and skills to provide prioritised recommendations to a prescriber resulting from a structured medication review.

How to use this programme

Our e-courses are run online. The programme runs in Canvas™ and you will be registered by CPPE and informed of your login details. This e-course is tutor supported. This means that you work through the course at a defined pace and are aided throughout by an experienced CPPE tutor. Each week you will be given reading and activities to complete and you will be able to network with other participants on the course. There is a menu on the left hand side of the page to navigate through each area and you can access each unit and its content separately.

Learning intended for

  • Pharmacists
  • Pharmacy technicians
  • Trainee pharmacists