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Jane Portlock, Professor of Pharmacy Postgraduate Education, Interim Director of CIPPET, University of Reading

Using pharmacists to ease pressure on GPs will only work with proper funding and more staff

You may soon be able to visit your pharmacist to get certain medicines without seeing a GP first. Yuri A/PeopleImages.com/ Shutterstock

The NHS is under tremendous pressure and patients are increasingly struggling to access appointments and urgent care. In a bid to improve primary care for patients, the UK government recently outlined a number of changes it plans to implement in England.

One of these proposed initiatives is allowing pharmacists to supply a number of prescription-only medicines for common conditions – including sinusitis, shingles and uncomplicated urinary tract infections – without patients needing a prescription from their GP.

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