Executive summary
Under the Medicines Act (1968) a pharmacy medicine (P medicine), is a medicinal product that can be sold from a 
registered pharmacy premises by a pharmacist or a person acting under the supervision of a pharmacist (Part III, Section 52). However, the legislation does not prohibit self-selection of these medications, leaving the details of any arrangements to the regulator.
Following changes brought by the pharmacy regulator (the General Pharmaceutical Council) implementing an outcomes approach to standards, there are pharmacies that are now adopting a more flexible interpretation of the open display and self-selection of P medicines. The national pharmacy boards of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) were asked to consider the current policy position at a meeting on 19 June 2024, resulting in the current call for evidence.
This call for evidence will inform the programme of work exploring the current position of the RPS that “Pharmacy medicines must not be accessible to the public by self-selection”.
The call for evidence is led by the Science & Research Team at the RPS under the leadership of its chief scientist. The Science & Research Team will undertake a review of the published evidence by accessing academic databases. The current ‘call for evidence’, is in recognition of the possibility that some formal data, evaluations, and assessments pertinent to the review may not be published in the public domain but may be held internally within organisations, or by individuals and other stakeholders. To help inform our review, we welcome such evidence to be submitted to us, in particular by:
- Regulators
- Pharmacy employers, including small independents to large multiples
- Pharmacy representative bodies
- Patient representative bodies
- Individual pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and pharmacy team members
- Academics
- Thinktanks
- Other stakeholders and researchers
- International pharmacy organisations
For full information on context, background and scope, please read this document before submitting your response.
How to respond
Responses must be in the form of formal data (ideally analysed), for example detailing trials, assessments, reports or evaluations of the benefit and harm of a facilitated self-selection model for P medicines concerning patient care.
Additionally, if you believe it is not possible to provide specific evidence because no data to address a particular concern(s) are currently available, please provide an explanation of areas where further research is required.
Please submit your responses by completing the form below.
The deadline for submissions is Friday, 6 September 2024.
If you would prefer to respond via post, please send your response to:
The Science & Research Team
Royal Pharmaceutical Society
66-68 East Smithfield
London, E1W 1AW
When responding, please indicate that you are responding to this consultation by using the following reference in your correspondence: ‘Self-selection: 2024 call for evidence’.
Please also indicate if you are responding as someone on behalf of a regulator, someone representing the views of a pharmacy business or representative body for pharmacy or for patients, an individual pharmacist or pharmacy technician, an academic, a thinktank, another stakeholder or research organisation, an international pharmacy body, or in another capacity (please specify).
The names of respondents to this call for evidence will be published (unless specifically requested otherwise), but their responses will not be publicly attributed to them.
What happens next?
The evidence gathered through this exercise will inform a report written by the Science & Research Team at the RPS. That report will also consider the published evidence around the benefits and harm of a facilitated self-selection model for P medicines in relation to patient care. The evidence base will support the RPS to carefully consider the appropriateness of the current position on facilitated self-selection of P medicines for now and in the future.
If you have any questions, please email the RPS team at [email protected].