The government hopes that a newly announced Medicines and Medical Devices Bill will enable the them to increase the range of professions able to prescribe low-risk medicines, enable the development of more innovative ways of dispensing medicines, where recommended by scientific experts, and provide a scheme to combat counterfeit medicines entering supply chains and a registration scheme for online sellers. The proposed bill also includes a new registration scheme for online pharmacies. Whilst the plan is to introduce the legislation across the UK, there has been no indication as to who or what this would include.

“Government proposes new Medicines and Medical Devices Bill“

President at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, Sandra Gidley, said there “is already quite a wide range of health professionals who can prescribe. Rather than expanding lesser formularies to other people, it would seem to me to make much more sense to think about why some people aren’t becoming prescribers at the moment and what the barriers of that might be. I’m not quite sure what problem they’re trying to solve.”