For UK community pharmacy contractors
More clinical consultations.
Fewer pharmacist hours.
A GPhC-registered pharmacist consults with your patients over secure video from a terminal in your consultation room — so you can deliver more NHS and private services without funding a second on-site pharmacist. Your Responsible Pharmacist stays on the premises, running dispensing and supply exactly as today.
- NHS DSPT — published status shown, dated and honest
- DCB0129 clinical risk management, named Clinical Safety Officer
- UK data residency · encrypted · full audit trail
The problem
The consultations are there. The pharmacist hours aren’t.
Single-handed days, unaffordable locum cover and missed thresholds are quietly costing contractors real money.
Locum cover is costly & scarce
Locum days run to roughly £250–£320+ (2024/25; rates vary and have recently fallen), and pharmacists are hard to recruit.
Miss the threshold, lose the payment
Fall short of 30 clinical-pathway consultations a month and you forfeit the £1,000 fixed payment — or drop to the £500 tier at 20–29.
£70m+ already missed
Record numbers of pharmacies have failed to hit the threshold — service income turned away for lack of pharmacist time.
How it works
Your room, your on-site team — plus a pharmacist on screen.
A deliberately simple model that keeps a registered professional in the loop at every step. The patient is never left alone with a screen.
Step 01
Install the terminal
A secure terminal in your existing consultation room — no new room needed.
Step 02
Your team connects
On-site staff greet the patient and start the secure video call.
Step 03
Pharmacist consults
A GPhC-registered pharmacist follows the relevant clinical pathway.
Step 04
Outcome & audit
Notes, supply and a full audit trail; NHS claims flow through your assured system.
Your Responsible Pharmacist remains on the premises throughout, running dispensing and supply as they do today. Remote Pharmacist adds consultation capacity — it never replaces your RP.
What it changes
Outcomes that map to the numbers you already report on.
Capture more NHS revenue
Add the clinical capacity to reach and hold Pharmacy First and advanced-service thresholds.
Cut duplicate staffing cost
Less reliance on a second on-site pharmacist and expensive locum cover for consultations.
Keep the room open
Cover absence and demand peaks without a locum day-rate — fewer reduced-hours days.
Continuity of care
The same remote pharmacist can support patients across your sites.
Governed by design
Consent, clinical notes and a hash-chained audit trail on every consultation.
Ready for 2026
Positioned for the shift to prescriber-led, hub-and-spoke services.
Built around NHS Pharmacy First
Capacity to deliver the seven pathways — within the rules.
NHS Pharmacy First launched 31 January 2024, covering seven common conditions plus urgent medicine supply and minor illness referrals. NHS England guidance permits clinical-pathway consultations by good-quality live video — with the delivering pharmacist at a pharmacy premises.
| Clinical pathway | Age range | Remote-suitable? |
|---|---|---|
| Sinusitis | 12 years and over | Yes — by video |
| Sore throat | 5 years and over | Yes — by video |
| Infected insect bites | 1 year and over | Yes — by video |
| Impetigo | 1 year and over | Yes — by video |
| Shingles | 18 years and over | Yes — by video |
| Uncomplicated urinary tract infections | Women 16 to 64 years | Yes — by video |
| Acute otitis media (earache) | 1 to 17 years | In-person — needs otoscope |
Honest by design. Acute otitis media needs an otoscope and can’t be done by remote consultation alone. Because the delivering pharmacist must be at a pharmacy premises, Remote Pharmacist provides added compliant capacity (a pharmacist at a registered hub) plus private services — we never imply NHS endorsement. Read what the spec allows →
Security & information governance
The detail a superintendent needs to sign off.
Because this is a clinical-safety and data-protection product, we publish only assurances we actually hold — and show honest, dated status for the rest.
Clinical safety
DCB0129 as the software manufacturer — named Clinical Safety Officer, hazard log and safety case; we support your DCB0160 deployment.
Data protection
UK GDPR / DPA, ICO registered, data minimisation — no patient data in logs, ever. UK data residency, encrypted.
Access & audit
Role-based access, mandatory MFA, no shared logins, append-only hash-chained audit of every access.
Recording
Consent-gated and policy-driven — off by default, signed-URL access only, retention-controlled.
See your upside
What could you add — and avoid?
Estimate the additional Pharmacy First income and the cover cost you could avoid. Instant headline; full breakdown by email.
Estimated annual upside
£0
- Added Pharmacy First income£0
- Cover cost you could avoid£0
Illustrative only, before platform cost. Uses public figures — £17 per consultation (from April 2025) and the £1,000 (30+) / £500 (20–29) monthly tiers. Locum rates vary by region.
Pricing
Priced so a few covered days a month pays for itself.
Single site
Per site
Terminal software, remote pharmacist access, notes & audit, support.
Multiples
Group pricing
Group dashboard, SSO and cross-site reporting. Pilot available; no long lock-in.
Enterprise
Contract
National rollout, integrations, and dedicated clinical governance support.
“Placeholder — a pilot site’s outcome in their words, added after our first pilots.”
— Superintendent Pharmacist, a five-site independent multiple
+##
extra clinical-pathway consultations / month
## days
locum cover avoided / quarter
Metric placeholders — real, dated figures added only after a pilot. All references stay generic and brand-free.
Questions
The real objections, answered honestly.
Is a remote pharmacist consultation allowed under NHS rules?
Yes — NHS England guidance for community pharmacy teams permits clinical-pathway consultations by good-quality live video, with IT equipment available in the consultation room. One condition matters: for NHS Pharmacy First, the pharmacist delivering the consultation must themselves be at a pharmacy premises.
Do you replace our Responsible Pharmacist?
No. Your Responsible Pharmacist remains required and present on the premises for dispensing and supply. Remote Pharmacist adds a consultation clinician — it does not remove your RP or provide remote supervision of dispensing, which is not permitted.
Which Pharmacy First pathways can be delivered remotely?
Six of the seven — sinusitis, sore throat, infected insect bites, impetigo, shingles and uncomplicated UTIs — are suitable for video. Acute otitis media (earache) needs an otoscope and cannot be delivered by remote consultation alone.
Are your pharmacists GPhC-registered?
Yes — registered and appropriately indemnified, working to a documented safe-prescribing and "convert to face-to-face" protocol, aligned with GPhC February 2025 expectations for distance services.
Where is patient data stored?
In the UK, encrypted in transit and at rest, with data minimisation — and no patient data in logs or analytics, ever.
What room and equipment do we need?
Your existing consultation room, the terminal, and a good-quality connection. We provide minimum-bandwidth guidance and a defined recovery path if a call drops.
See your Pharmacy First upside — book a demo
A 20-minute conversation to map the model to your sites and numbers. No commitment, no hardware to buy first.