Pharmacy First and people’s experience of the service in Northumberland

In autumn 2025, we asked for your views of the Pharmacy First service in Northumberland.

Pharmacy First, which was launched in January 2024, enables community pharmacies to provide treatment for seven common conditions without patients needing to see a GP. These are earache, impetigo, infected insect bites, shingles, sinusitis, sore throat and urinary tract infections (UTIs) for women aged 16-64. Pharmacists can also provide an urgent repeat medicine supply.

126 people from all parts of the county answered our questions about their knowledge and use of Pharmacy First.

Findings

Overall, about two thirds of people said they had heard of the Pharmacy First service and of those, about two thirds had used Pharmacy First.

The results of this project also showed that:

• In North Northumberland the majority of respondents had not heard of the service
• Across the whole of the county men weren’t as aware of the scheme as women, with a slight majority of men who hadn’t heard of the scheme
• Awareness of the Pharmacy First scheme was good across all age bands, except in the 80+ year olds where just over half of the elderly respondents had not heard of the scheme

In terms of usage of the scheme, more people used the Pharmacy First service to get treatment for conditions other than one of the seven conditions that the service covers. Otherwise, sore throats and urinary tract infections were the most common reasons for seeking treatment.

The message to use your pharmacy first appears to be working as, overall, over two thirds of people said they did not try to make an appointment with their GP first. For those under 50 years old and all ages of men, this rose to four out of five saying that they did not try to make an appointment with their GP first. So, although less men are aware of the service, they are more likely to use the scheme than women.

Most felt happy about the level of support they got from the pharmacy, in terms of diagnosis and treatment and that their needs were met. Only a quarter of respondents said they were asked to see a GP or other NHS service, with the GP being the most common service that people told us they were asked to attend. As a consequence, over 85% were very likely or likely to recommend the Pharmacy First service to a friend.

In the future, most people would be happy to see a pharmacist for any of the seven Pharmacy First conditions. However, the two most common concerns about seeing a community pharmacist were the pharmacist missing something more serious or still needing to go to the GP, with about half choosing one or both of these worries.

Overall, Pharmacy First is seen as a great service, where you can be seen quickly, so relieving pressure on GPs. However, there are some concerns around confidentiality as about one in five people said they hadn’t been seen in a private area. While we recognise the physical constraints in some premises, lack of confidential space is an area to address if the take up of services is to be maximised.

Recommendations

To increase awareness of the Pharmacy First scheme:

• Promote Pharmacy First in North Northumberland more as this area has a much lower awareness than the rest of the county
• Promote Pharmacy First more in places men are more likely to go (e.g. football grounds, pubs and clubs, men’s toilets in trunk road services etc)

To increase uptake of the Pharmacy First scheme:

• Promote the training and qualifications of pharmacists to women to reassure them that seeing a pharmacist won’t mean something is missed, or they will only have to go to their GP in the end anyway
• Emphasise the importance for confidential space to maximise take up of the service

Read more online or download a pdf of our Pharmacy First findings report.