“NHSE has announced that multi-sector rotations during the 2026/27 foundation pharmacist training programme will not now be mandatory,” Community Pharmacy England (CPE) today (December 17) revealed.
It said that NHSE had “mandated that multi-sector rotations would be required for all trainees starting in the 2026/27 training year”, following the General Pharmaceutical Council’s (GPhC) new standards for initial education and training of pharmacists.
“Multi-sector rotations involve at least 13 weeks of training in a different area of pharmacy practice to the one the trainee is based in,” CPE added.
Read more: Employers ‘forcing’ pharmacists to be DPPs amid ‘two-tier’ IP system
But now, NHSE “has decided that mandatory rotations will be delayed and a phased approach will instead be implemented”, it said.
NHSE made the call “mindful of the current pressures faced by pharmacy teams and the broader healthcare sector and to support pharmacy teams in continuing to deliver high quality training”, CPE added.
“Full implementation” in 2027/28
In a letter sent to training providers and pharmacy bodies, NHSE said that “currently all programmes” for 2026/27 “are expected to include a multi-sector rotation”.
“Although NHSE remains fully committed to implementing multi-sector rotations for all trainees and strongly supports continued progress toward this goal, some areas may require a phased approach,” it added.
It revealed that “full implementation [is] anticipated by the 2027/28 cohort”.
Read more: Cross-sector training no silver bullet for retaining community pharmacy staff
The letter said that while the “goal” of most programmes including multi-sector rotations by the employer national recruitment deadline in March 2025 still remains, “single sector programmes…will still be eligible for the 2026/27 recruitment cycle”.
“From March 2026 onwards, single-sector programmes will not be accepted for training programmes starting in 2027,” it stressed.
Half of programmes still multi-sector
NHSE acknowledged “the work pharmacy employers have invested in developing their training programmes for 2025/26”.
This includes “securing access to prescribing learning environments and designated prescribing practitioners (DPPs)” so that all trainees qualify as independent prescribers (IP) from 2025/26, it said.
And it revealed that even with the relaxed multi-sector standards, multi-sector rotational programmes will still “be available for approximately 50% of trainees entering training” in 2025/26.
Read more: Trainee IP pharmacists asked to fork out up to £3k to source own DPP
It comes as the Pharmacists’ Defence Association (PDA) this month warned that some pharmacies are “forcing employees to be DPPs” while DPPs at “one large multiple” are not “routinely prescribing themselves”.
In January, the Primary Care Pharmacy Association (PCPA) announced that both general practices and primary care networks (PCNs) would be eligible for “lead employer” trainee pharmacist funding from 2025/26 - some £26,500 a year in funding per trainee.
And in June, Oriel data revealed that large multiples will be the lead employer on only 277 of the 4102 placements available for the 2025/26 cohort of pharmacy trainees.
Read more: Multiples will only offer 300 trainee placements for 2025/26
Meanwhile in August, C+D learned that pharmacy companies had asked individual IP trainees to source their own DPPs for between £2,500 and £3,000.
And last October, Community Pharmacy Wales’s (CPW) acting chief executive Judy Misra said that “from a reality point of view”, cross-sector training “hasn’t been hugely successful from a community pharmacy perspective…in retaining” staff in parts of Wales.
