In 1345 some members of the Guild of Pepperers founded the Worshipful Company of Grocers, which operated until 1617 and was responsible for assuring the quality of food and drugs.
Silvanus Bevan received 7 years of training and later co-founded Allen & Hanburys in 1715, now part of GlaxoSmithKline.
[1] In 1960 there were proposals that private patients of general practitioners should be enabled to receive their drugs free on the health service, but they were not implemented.
[5] The Health Survey for England 2016 showed that 48% of adults in the country had taken at least one prescribed medicine in the past week, and 24% had taken three or more; 10% were using antidepressants.
This modification enabled pharmacy contractors to be paid for Medicines Use Reviews conducted by pharmacists for people with multiple long term prescriptions.
There are also New Medicine Services, which are intended for patients who have started on long term medication, such as asthma treatment.
Future payments under the scheme are conditional on all pharmacy staff being able to send and receive email by the November review date.
Pharmacists who have accessed Summary Care Records more than 100 times between two specific dates will also be eligible for a payment.
[12] The revised contract for 2021 in England provided payment for blood pressure checks in high street pharmacies.
In April 2017 Vaughan Gething announced that there were "no proposals to reduce investment in community pharmacy here in Wales" as was happening in England.
[15] The Royal Pharmaceutical Society in Scotland called for the creation of a single electronic patient health record which pharmacists could access in October 2017.
They said their members needed to have the same access to records as a GP or hospital consultant in order to provide safe treatment to people in the community.
This scheme permits pharmacists to treat uncomplicated urinary tract infections in women and impetigo in children without a doctor's prescription.
It also increases access for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to medication-related advice and patient-centred medicine review.
[17] The Scottish government's 'NHS Recovery Plan' launched in 2021 includes a hospital discharge and medicines reconciliation service run by community pharmacies.
[22] NHS England is supporting initiatives to place pharmacists in GP practices in order to improve the management of medication for patients with long term conditions.
Patients can be referred to community pharmacies from NHS 111 for minor ailments, such as earache, nasal congestion and sore throat.
[30] In June 2022 there were 3,294 full-time equivalent pharmacists recorded as working in English primary care networks, an increase of about 700 in a year.
[32] Because of greater use of specialist medicines the cost, at list price, of prescribed medication in hospitals in England increased by 10.8% to £9.2 billion in 2017/2018 compared with the previous year.
[48] In August 2015 it was announced that retail pharmacies would be given access to NHS patients Summary Care Records after a pilot of 140 pharmacies in Somerset, Northampton, North Derbyshire, Sheffield and West Yorkshire, demonstrated “significant benefits.” Pharmacists have to ask for a patient’s permission to view their record.