Community Pharmacy England (CPE) - News updates

Update 14/08/2025: changes to MSN/2025/036 updated in bold below: The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has issued a medicine supply notification for the following products: Levemir® (insulin detemir) FlexPen® 100units/ml solution for injection 3ml pre-filled pens Levemir® Penfill® 100units/ml solution for injection 3ml cartridges MSN/2025/036 Tier 2 – medium impact Date of issue: [...] The post Updated Medicine Supply Notification: Levemir® (insulin detemir) FlexPen® 100units/ml solution for injection 3ml pre-filled pens and Levemir® Penfill 100units/ml solution for injection 3ml cartridges appeared first on Community Pharmacy England.

MHRA Class 4 Medicines Defect Notification: Levetiracetam 100mg/ml oral solution (Accord Healthcare Limited) Date issued: 14 August 2025 Drug Alert Number: EL(25)A/40 Accord Healthcare Limited, UK has informed the MHRA that the Patient Information Leaflet (PIL) and Summary of Product Characteristics (SPC) do not contain all the required safety information. DMRC reference number: DMRC-35838218 Marketing Authorisation [...] The post MHRA Class 4 Medicines Defect Notification: Levetiracetam 100mg/ml oral solution (Accord Healthcare Limited) appeared first on Community Pharmacy England.

Dapagliflozin 5mg and 10mg tablets will be moving from Category C to Category M in the September 2025 Drug Tariff. This comes after several manufacturers launched generic versions of Dapagliflozin tablets following the recent ruling by the UK Court of Appeal to invalidate AstraZeneca’s patent for the brand Forxiga®. Currently, all branded and generically written prescriptions [...] The post Dapagliflozin tablets – changes to reimbursement from September 2025 appeared first on Community Pharmacy England.

Community pharmacy teams are invited to take part in a new NHS England pilot aimed at improving the prescription tracking experience for patients using the NHS App. NHS England is launching a pilot to enhance the experience of patients who use the NHS App to manage their prescriptions. NHS England is developing in-app notifications about [...] The post Volunteer: Join the updated EPS status tracking NHS App pilot appeared first on Community Pharmacy England.

Pharmacy teams should be aware that FreeStyle® Libre 2 Sensor (Abbott Laboratories Ltd) will be discontinued in August 2025 and deleted from Part IX of the October 2025  Drug Tariff. Any NHS prescriptions for the FreeStyle® Libre 2 Sensor dispensed from 1 October 2025 will be disallowed by the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA). Patients currently [...] The post Reminder: discontinuation of FreeStyle® Libre 2 Sensor appeared first on Community Pharmacy England.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has published details of its ongoing work and plans to improve the management of medicines supply issues. This includes a commitment to consulting on the introduction of pharmacist flexibilities to supply alternatives when a medicine is in short supply. The new policy paper, Managing a robust and [...] The post DHSC outlines work to improve medicines supply appeared first on Community Pharmacy England.

NHS England has today published the Pharmacy Quality Scheme (PQS) Antimicrobial stewardship – Pharmacy First consultations – Clinical Audit. Completion of the audit, as well as sharing anonymised data with NHS England and incorporating any learnings from the audit into future practice by the end of 31st March 2026, is a quality criterion in the [...] The post PQS: Publication of clinical audit appeared first on Community Pharmacy England.

The Government is advising community pharmacy owners to take action to prepare for the upcoming national switch-off of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), which is due to be fully decommissioned by January 2027. In a letter to the sector, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and the Department for Health and Social Care has outlined [...] The post Pharmacies to prepare for national digital phoneline switchover appeared first on Community Pharmacy England.

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) has seen an increase in the number of prescriptions from patients using the “HRT only prescription prepayment certificate” prescription charge exemption category for products that are not covered by the HRT Prescription Prepayment Certificate (HRT PPC). In the 12 months between June 2024 and May 2025, the NHSBSA received over 200k [...] The post Medicines not covered by the HRT PPC appeared first on Community Pharmacy England.

The National Patient Prescription Tracking Service (NPPTS) enables patients to access and track their prescriptions online through the NHS App or their NHS account (by logging in on the NHS website). NPPTS is a feature of the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) that utilises a combination of Spine and Pharmacy IT supplier systems’ information to provide item and [...] The post Rollout of prescription status info in the NHS App continues appeared first on Community Pharmacy England.