Start in Primary Care
A guided, self-paced 12-session induction for pharmacists moving into general practice - from hospital, community pharmacy, or newly registered.
What this course does for you
Every route into primary care brings real strengths and predictable gaps. This course sequences the right modules in the right order, tells you what to lean on and what to work hardest at for your background, and pairs every phase with the practice lab where you prove it. Finish it and you are safe, useful and credible in a GP practice - and ready for the Practitioner programme.
Where are you coming from?
The modules are the same for everyone, but what you lean on and where you work hardest are not. Pick your background and every phase below shows guidance written for you.
The 12-session pathway
Eight phases, in order. Each pairs the right modules with the practice lab where you prove the skill.
Phase 1: Find your feet - the landscape and your place in it
Understand how general practice and PCNs work, how the money flows, and exactly where your role sits - so everything you are asked to do makes sense.
Foundations of Primary Care Pharmacy
How general practice works, where the pharmacy team fits, and the clinical systems you will live in every day.
How the NHS & Primary Care Works
A plain-English orientation to the structure, commissioning and funding of NHS primary care in England.
Phase 2: The record and your professional guardrails
Read any record fast, write entries that are defensible, and get consent, confidentiality and safeguarding right from day one.
The Patient Record & Professional Record-Keeping
How to read a record quickly, why we document at all, and how to write entries that are safe, legible, patient-facing and defensible.
Professionalism, Consent & Confidentiality
The GPhC standards in everyday practice: acting in the person’s interest, consent, confidentiality and boundaries.
Safeguarding & Safety-Netting Essentials
Recognising and escalating safeguarding concerns, and safety-netting every interaction.
Phase 3: The daily workflow - letters and reconciliation
Master the core loop of the job: read reconcile act code document communicate. This is what you will do more than anything else.
Actioning Clinical Correspondence - the Basics
The systematic method for processing an incoming letter safely: read, reconcile, act, code, document, communicate.
Medicines Reconciliation Basics
Making sure the medicines on the record match what the patient should actually be taking, especially after a hospital stay.
Prove it in the lab
Theory done, now do the job.
Phase 4: Clinical coding - making your work count
Code accurately and specifically. Coding drives safety alerts, recalls, QOF and practice income - it is how the system sees your work.
Prove it in the lab
Theory done, now do the job.
Phase 5: The repeat prescribing engine
Understand and safely run the machinery that generates most of general practice's prescribing - and most of its medication risk.
Managing Repeat Prescribing & Authorisations
Running a safe repeat prescribing system: re-authorisation, synchronisation, overdue monitoring and quantities.
Signing Prescriptions with Confidence
How to check and sign repeat prescriptions quickly, safely and confidently - and why good housekeeping (reauths and medication reviews) is the small job today that saves the big job tomorrow.
Optional: Signing Prescriptions with Confidence - take this now if you are (or are about to be) signing in the workflow; otherwise return to it when you qualify as a prescriber.
Prove it in the lab
Theory done, now do the job.
Phase 6: Bloods and high-risk medicines
Interpret the monitoring bloods you will see every day and proactively manage the small set of medicines that cause most serious harm.
Interpreting Blood Tests & Monitoring
A deep, practical guide to reading the blood tests you meet every day in primary care - renal, liver, full blood count, thyroid, glucose, bone, clotting and drug levels - what the numbers mean, which medicines cause or are affected by them, what to monitor and when, and exactly when to act or escalate.
High-Risk Medicines & Monitoring
Managing the medicines most likely to cause serious harm: monitoring, interactions and sick-day rules.
Prove it in the lab
Theory done, now do the job.
Phase 7: Talking to patients
Run structured, person-centred consultations - face to face and on the phone - and write notes a colleague could act on cold.
Prove it in the lab
Theory done, now do the job.
Phase 8: Reviews - building your clinical caseload
Bring it all together: action complex discharges end-to-end and run your first structured medication reviews with a documented, shared plan.
Actioning Hospital Discharge & Clinic Letters
The full reconciliation workflow for discharges and specialist clinic letters, including monitoring and recalls.
Structured Medication Reviews (SMR)
Run a person-centred SMR using a recognised framework (7-Steps / NO TEARS), from preparation to documented plan.
Polypharmacy & Deprescribing Foundations
Identifying problematic polypharmacy and deprescribing safely, with the patient, using evidence and structure.
Optional: Polypharmacy & Deprescribing Foundations - the natural stretch goal if reviews are going well; otherwise it is the first module of your post-induction plan.
Prove it in the lab
Theory done, now do the job.
Finishing the course - and what comes next
Take the Foundation assessment
You will have completed the whole Foundation level plus key Practitioner modules - sit the assessment and bank the certificate.
Go to assessmentRe-run the skills check
Compare against your week-1 baseline and watch the level recommendation move.
Skills checkBook a mentoring session
A 1:1 with an experienced primary care pharmacist to review your first months and plan your Practitioner-level development.
MentoringContinue to Practitioner
The remaining Practitioner modules (LTC coding & QOF, deprescribing, and the rest) are the natural next step to running your own caseload.
Practitioner levelPharmacy technician? Your role has its own dedicated pathway - see the Pharmacy Technician programme (T1 onwards), mapped to the PCN Network Contract DES technician scope.