Clinical Pharmacist Services for GP Practices

A woman using a laptop at a table

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. 

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.

Clinical pharmacist reviewing medication on a computer

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
By focusing specialist clinical review on dedicated areas, practices can experience improved compliance in key QOF areas, such as diabetes, hypertension, asthma, and more. This will also enhance the quality and suitability of prescriptions.
Clinical pharmacist supporting a GP practice remotely
Clinical pharmacist working within a practice clinical system
Reduce GP & ANP Workloads
The Virtual Pharmacist solution manages medication queries, medicine reconciliation, acute medication queries, prescription signing by our independent prescribers, and more. The handling of these jobs by our pharmacists helps to reduce clinicians’ workloads and allow them to focus on other complex patient care needs.
Simple Onboarding Processes
We agree the workstreams, clinical-system access, escalation routes and reporting with you before delivery starts. You set the priorities; we take responsibility for the clinical work we deliver under our clinical governance and data security framework. Our provider checklist sets out the questions to ask when comparing services.
Clinical pharmacist onboarding with a GP practice

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

  1. You set the priorities: the registers, searches or queues you want worked.
  2. We work remotely through secure, NHS-approved access to your system.
  3. Every patient is assessed individually, and every action is coded in your record as it happens.
  4. You get regular reporting on what was done and what needs your GPs.
  5. 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.

How Does Virtual Pharmacist Work?

1

Explore our services

Take a look through our services to find out which one works best to support your practice’s needs. 
2
Submit an enquiry
Get in touch with us or submit an enquiry to tell us which service solution your practice requires. 
3
Get started
We’ll typically be in touch within one working day to introduce you to our managed clinical pharmacy service and how it works for your practice.

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

We use secure, NHS-approved remote access to work directly in your systems, whether that is EMIS, SystmOne, Vision, or Medicus. We work securely within your clinical systems and align our service to each practice’s priorities, while applying our own clinical methods and governance to the work.
Yes. The same core clinical team delivers your service throughout, getting to know your patients, systems and protocols so care stays joined-up and standards stay high.

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.

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.

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.

Virtual Pharmacist clinical pharmacist

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