Can Pharmacy Technicians Use PGDs?

The short answer is: it's changing, and the direction of travel is clear.

Historically, only specified healthcare professionals could operate under PGDs. For pharmacy, this meant registered pharmacists. Pharmacy technicians — despite being GPhC-registered professionals with significant clinical training — were excluded from the legal framework.

In June 2024, the UK government consulted on extending PGD eligibility to pharmacy technicians for specific, lower-risk services. This follows the broader trend of expanding the pharmacy technician role that began with the Pharmacy First programme and the GPhC's revised standards for initial education and training.

The rationale is straightforward: pharmacy technicians are already performing many aspects of clinical service delivery. They take patient histories, conduct screening assessments, and support consultation workflows. Allowing them to supply certain medicines under PGD — with appropriate training and governance — increases capacity without compromising safety.

For pharmacy owners and superintendents, this has practical implications. If your pharmacists are the bottleneck for PGD services — particularly high-volume, lower-complexity services like flu vaccination, emergency contraception, or minor ailment treatment — technician-delivered PGDs could significantly increase your consultation capacity.

The key point to understand is that this won't be a blanket extension. The regulatory change is expected to specify which PGDs technicians can operate under, with requirements for additional training, competency assessment, and clinical supervision. The pharmacist remains the responsible professional — but the delivery model becomes more flexible.

What should you do now? First, make sure your PGD provider is preparing for the change. The best providers are already designing training pathways and updated governance frameworks for technician-delivered PGDs. Second, identify which of your current services would benefit from technician delivery — typically the high-volume, protocol-driven services with clear inclusion and exclusion criteria.

This is not a future consideration. The regulatory wheels are turning and the pharmacies that prepare now will be first to benefit when the change takes effect.