(ID: 309) Exploring newly qualified pharmacist prescribers’ intention to prescribe

Introduction: Newly qualified pharmacist prescribers will be joining the register from July 2026. It is therefore important that our new prescribing workforce are supported and provided with opportunities in their organisations to utilise their prescribing skills. Evidence suggests that a number of pharmacists who hold an independent prescribing qualification do not prescribe or do so only infrequently [1,2]. It is therefore important to learn what may influence a newly qualified pharmacists’ intention to prescribe and how their organisation may need to support the next generation of pharmacists in this new role.

Aim: Explore newly qualified pharmacists’ intention to prescribe, identifying the role employers may play in influencing pharmacist’s intentions to prescribe.

Methodology: Data was collected via focus groups with newly qualified pharmacists completing an independent prescribing course, interviews with organisational/educational lead pharmacists in NHS secondary care organisations that employ prescribing pharmacists and an online survey with newly qualified pharmacists. Data was analysed using the framework method [3]. Ethical approval was granted for this study by the University of East Anglia, ref: ETH2425-2154. This study was funded by the Norfolk Initiative for Coastal and Rural Health Equalities.

Results: Newly qualified pharmacists’ intention to prescribe is linked to their feelings of competence (belief they have the ability to prescribe), confidence (belief they can prescribe) and comfort (belief their organisation supports them to prescribe). Newly qualified pharmacists believed themselves to be competent prescribers, there was disagreement amongst individuals regarding how confident they felt. Confidence was heavily influenced by comfort in their organisation. Fear of pressures to prescribe to facilitate discharges, or pressure to prescribe for patients that were unknown to them were present. In essence, there was recognition that saying ‘No’ to prescribing requests would be difficult and this hampered feelings of confidence and comfort. Some organisational and Educational expressed a desire to improve newly qualified pharmacist’s comfort to prescribe through the introduction of prescribing restrictions. These restrictions would enable newly qualified pharmacists to more easily say ‘No’ to inappropriate prescribing requests and as they gained experience, restrictions would be lifted, enabling more medicines to be prescribed by the newly qualified pharmacist as they progressed through their career.

Discussion: The newly qualified pharmacists who participated in this study are concerned about the pressure they will face to write prescriptions that they perceive as inappropriate. It is therefore important that organisations seeking to employ newly qualified prescribing pharmacists from July 2026 have support structures in place to provide these pharmacists with ‘comfortability’ to prescribe appropriately in their organisation. Lack of support for newly qualified pharmacists prescribing could result in pharmacists not utilising their prescribing skills or prescribing inappropriately. Neither of these outcomes is desirable for the future prescribing workforce. Rather, newly qualified pharmacists need to be equipped with the knowledge and skills for developing competence and confidence and organisations need to provide supportive environments for prescribing practice to take place.