Nursing time freed up and 'repurposed' through collaboration with pharmacies

More than 250 hours of general practice nursing time over a five month-period was freed up as a result of greater collaboration between community pharmacists and a GP practice in Manchester.

The Community Pharmacy and General Practice conference in Birmingham last week heard about measures that the Brooke Surgery took to increase use of the Pharmacy First scheme and make the most out of the independent prescribing (IP) pathfinder programme.

The latter, launched in October 2025, authorises specially-trained pharmacists to prescribe NHS medicines directly to patients for a range of illnesses with the aim of shifting workload from GP practices to pharmacies.

The IP pathfinder initiative was initially centrally funded by NHS England but some ICBs, including Greater Manchester, have subsequently taken on financial responsibility for it.

Data suggests that from October 2025 to March 2026, 254 hours of general practice nursing time was ‘repurposed’ after pharmacies took on 52 hours of contraceptive requests and 202 hours of ABMP monitoring.

The surgery suggested this nursing time could be repurposed to provide 1,016 smear tests, 1,524 blood tests, 762 ECGs, 1,524 diabetic foot checks, 762 asthma or COPD reviews, or 1,524 injections for B12, shingles and others.

Ishaq Goga, lead clinical mentor for the community pharmacy IP Pathfinder programme, Greater Manchester and lead clinical pharmacist at the Brooke Surgery, said the collaboration had a positive impact on the nursing team, although initially, he admitted, they were worried that their core work was being taken away.

‘Actually, we upskilled the nursing team, so they are able to do spirometry and provide more enhanced treatments. They were also able to carry out more blood test appointments, ECGs, smear tests, asthma or COPD reviews, and vaccinations,’ he said.

More widely, the data showed there were a total 2,355 referrals made by Brooke Surgery to Pharmacy First. Out of those, 604 were IP pathfinder consultations, 807 were for ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) and 209 for contraceptive services.

‘Our calculations, based on average BMA clinical appointment times, showed that the repurposed number of hours given back to GPs and our GP practice was 521 hours,’ Mr Goga said.

Of those, 109 hours were released as a result of the IP Pathfinder programme and 412 via Pharmacy First services. This equated to 2,084 additional GP appointments, as well as the 254 hours of nursing time.

‘Having this time freed up helped us meet demand and access in general practice,’ Mr Goga said. ‘Patients were also happy they were being referred to the appropriate provider in a timely manner and treated accordingly.

‘It’s got to the point that when it looked like the IP pathfinder programme might be drawing to an end, GP partners were absolutely panicking.’

Mr Goga explained that the change moving from treating minor ailments to providing integrated clinical care came about because of building trust through clinical feedback and two-way referrals and collaborative working.

‘GP surgeries and pharmacies need to be open to have a conversation and not be held back by past experience and work together,’ he advised.

Key success factors include developing meaningful relationships between community pharmacy and GP practices; setting clear expectations and agreeing roles, responsibilities and referral processes; being able to provide rapid feedback; and involving the whole practice in the new way of working, including GPs, nurses reception and other teams.

Mr Goga concluded: ‘I’m really proud of this piece of work. We are now piloting referring lipid patients and hypertensive patients and there are conversations about phlebotomy.

‘We worked collaboratively and have seen positive patient outcomes and tangible benefits.

Also at the conference, organised by Nursing in Practice’s publisher Cogora, primary care minister Stephen Kinnock said that ‘stronger collaboration’ between community pharmacy and general practice is ‘vital’ to the future success of the NHS.

In a video address to an audience of primary care staff including GPs, practice managers and pharmacists he said: ‘Stronger collaboration between community pharmacy and general practice is not just desirable; it’s vital to the future success of the NHS.

‘Community pharmacy is embedded in every neighbourhood, and general practice sits at the heart of continuous care alongside the wider primary workforce.

‘You will be central to turning the ambitions of the 10-Year Health Plan into reality for patients. Crucially, the success of this plan depends on you – on your ability to work together, use your skills to the fullest and drive this change forward.’

It comes as the Government announced last month that the Pharmacy First scheme will be expanded to include IP, with NHS England expected to create an expert clinical reference group across primary care to consider the new pathways.

Bacterial conjunctivitis, allergic conjunctivitis, oral thrush, skin infections and respiratory tract infections services could be considered for the expanded service.

Mr Kinnock added that general practice and community pharmacy working together will be ‘central’ to the delivery of the 10-year plan for the NHS, with care delivered in the community by ‘skilled professionals who know their patients best’.

This comes as a Royal College of Nursing (RCN) leader stated there is a ‘real scope and desire’ for practice nurses and community pharmacies to work more closely together but funding issues remain a significant ‘barrier’.

Speaking at the same conference, RCN primary care nursing lead Kim Ball stressed it was important that nurses and primary care colleagues do not work in isolation and that there were opportunities to work more closely across the system.

Ms Ball, who featured in an opening plenary on the second day of the conference, argued that while the business models of GP practices and pharmacies are pitted against one another, there was a need to better integrate in the interest of patient care.

A version of this article was first published by our sister title Management in Practice