Clinical Pharmacist Services for GP Practices
Clinical Pharmacist Services for GP Practices
Structured medication review pathways delivered by UK-based, GPhC-registered clinical pharmacists
Our clinical pharmacist support service delivers structured remote medication review pathways through our experienced clinical team, working alongside your GP teams to lift the medicines workload. It is a fully managed clinical pharmacy service: we run the governance, the rota and the cover, so there is nothing for your practice to recruit or manage.
The team of clinical pharmacists within the Virtual Pharmacist network are fully trained, experienced, and experts in their own right across a full range of healthcare services to support your practice.
How Will This Help My Practice?
Virtual Pharmacist’s clinical pharmacists use structured review pathways aligned with national guidance to support medicines optimisation and patient care within your practice.
Improved Safety & Quality
Our pharmacists deliver medication reviews, high-risk drug monitoring, and proactive medicines optimisation services of high clinical quality to patients. Every solution is driven by the pharmacists’ expertise, clinical governance, and NICE guidance.
Uplift in QOF & Prescribing Quality
Reduce GP & ANP Workloads
Simple Onboarding Processes
“The team is consistently reliable. Phones are always answered and emails come back the same day. It’s made a real difference to how we run our medication reviews.”
“Fast email replies and clinical input whenever we need it. They picked up our medicines work seamlessly and delivered from day one.”
“Excellent service from start to finish. Easy to reach, quick to reply, and they clearly know NHS workflows inside out. We couldn’t recommend the team more highly.”
How Does Virtual Pharmacist Work?
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is a clinical pharmacist?
Clinical pharmacists are experienced healthcare professionals who are specially trained and highly qualified in medicines. This provides specialist knowledge and enhanced patient care opportunities for your practice. Our clinical pharmacists, with their expertise and wealth of knowledge, are suited to medication reviews and prescription management.
How do you integrate into our practice’s clinical systems?
Will we have continuity of care?
Do your pharmacists provide structured medication reviews?
Yes, our pharmacists are experienced in delivering structured medication reviews (SMRs). Our pharmacists deliver structured medication reviews in line with NHS England guidance, involving the patient or their carer in decisions about their medicines. Reviews consider the person’s priorities, benefits and risks, adherence, monitoring and opportunities for optimisation, with appropriate clinical coding. Remote reviews are used where suitable, with face-to-face assessment or escalation arranged when needed.
Can your pharmacists manage high-risk drug monitoring?
Yes, we work within clear protocols to proactively support practices and look after patients who have been prescribed potentially hazardous medications. Our high-risk drug monitoring service supports timely action and follow-up through agreed protocols and escalation routes.
What is the difference between a clinical pharmacist service and recruiting a pharmacist?
With a service, we take responsibility for delivering an agreed workload under our own governance, and cover for leave or sickness sits with us. With recruitment, the practice hires, supervises and covers the role itself.
What our clinical pharmacists do for your practice
Our clinical pharmacist service takes a defined part of your medicines workload and delivers it inside your own clinical system, under our governance. Practices most often ask us to cover:
- Structured medication reviews (SMRs) and polypharmacy reviews
- High-risk drug monitoring
- Medicines reconciliation after hospital discharge and clinic letters
- Repeat and acute prescription requests and medicines queries
- Prescription signing by our independent prescribers
- Medicines-related QOF work across long-term condition registers
- MHRA safety alert searches, worked patient by patient
Who carries out the work
Reviews are carried out by GPhC-registered pharmacists, 85% of whom are independent prescribers. More than 100 pharmacists and pharmacy technicians work under one clinical governance framework. The same core team stays with your practice, and escalation routes to your GPs are agreed with you at the start.
How the service works day to day
- You set the priorities: the registers, searches or queues you want worked.
- We work remotely through secure, NHS-approved access to your system.
- Every patient is assessed individually, and every action is coded in your record as it happens.
- You get regular reporting on what was done and what needs your GPs.
- Cover for leave and sickness is our responsibility, not yours.
Results practices have seen
- Three practices in Northamptonshire came to us with CQC inspection dates already set. At each one, the medicines-safety searches were built, run and worked through inside two weeks to support the practice ahead of inspection. CQC determines the inspection findings and rating.
- A practice of around 6,000 patients handed over its medicines-related QOF work in August. One governed pathway supported around 26 indicators, with registers worked across the year rather than at the deadline.
- A Derbyshire practice used an ICB scheme that pays £80 for each clinically appropriate anticoagulant switch. Of 65 patients screened, 37 were switched and the practice claimed £2,960.
Our longest-standing practices and PCNs have been with us since 2021. Read the full case studies.
Governance and data security
Virtual Pharmacist meets the NHS Data Security and Protection Toolkit standards for 2025-26, holds Cyber Essentials certification and is registered with the ICO (ZB127110). Read our clinical governance and data security framework.
Clinical pharmacist services for PCNs
Networks can commission the same service across every member practice, with one standard and reporting per practice. See PCN Pharmacist Services.
