PGD vs PSD — What's the Difference?
PGDs and PSDs both let pharmacists supply medicines, but they work differently. Here's what you need to know.
Both Patient Group Directions (PGDs) and Patient Specific Directions (PSDs) allow medicines to be supplied without a traditional prescription, but they serve different purposes and have different legal requirements.
A PGD is a pre-authorised direction that allows a named healthcare professional to supply a specified medicine to any patient who fits the defined criteria. It's a one-to-many model — one direction covers an entire patient group.
A PSD, by contrast, is a one-to-one instruction. A prescriber (usually a doctor) writes a direction for a specific, named patient. It's essentially a prescription alternative used in settings like hospitals and clinics where standard prescriptions aren't practical.
For community pharmacy, PGDs are far more relevant. They allow pharmacists to assess and treat patients independently, without needing to contact a prescriber for each individual. This is what makes services like travel vaccination clinics, UTI treatment, and weight management commercially viable in pharmacy.
The key differences come down to scope, flexibility, and autonomy. Under a PGD, the pharmacist makes the clinical decision. Under a PSD, the prescriber has already made the decision — the pharmacist is simply carrying out the instruction.
From a governance perspective, PGDs require more upfront work — they need formal authorisation, training, and competency assessment. But once in place, they give the pharmacist full clinical autonomy within the scope of the direction.
PSDs are simpler to set up but less scalable. Every patient needs an individual direction from a prescriber, which creates a bottleneck.
For pharmacy owners thinking about private services, PGDs are the foundation. They're what enable you to run a travel clinic, offer weight management consultations, or provide sexual health services without relying on a GP for every patient.
The practical takeaway: if you want to build a scalable private services operation, you need PGDs. PSDs have their place in specific clinical settings, but they're not the tool for growing a pharmacy-based clinical services business.
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