NHS Pharmacy First Scotland
Guidance on the NHS Pharmacy First Scotland minor ailments service
From 29th July 2020 the Minor Ailments Service (MAS) was replaced by the NHS Pharmacy First Scotland service as detailed in Scottish Government NHS Circular PCA (P) (2020) 13.
The NHS Pharmacy First Scotland service seeks to encourage people to go to their local community pharmacy for support with minor and acute health conditions. The patient eligibility has been extended in comparison to the previous MAS to include all individuals who are registered with a GP practice in Scotland, or who live in Scotland, subject to certain exceptions for visitors to Scotland, refer to the circular for more details.
The service is consultation based. Pharmacy teams will undertake an NHS Pharmacy First Scotland consultation and provide one of three options - Advice, Treatment or Referral to another healthcare professional, if appropriate. In addition to minor conditions, it will also continue to provide advice and treatment for specific common clinical conditions, starting with uncomplicated UTIs in women and impetigo. Further common clinical conditions will be identified and added in due course.
There is an Approved List of products available to be supplied to patients under the service and this, along with additional resources, is available from the NHS National Services Scotland website.
Accessing NHS Pharmacy First Scotland recommendations on this website
- As this is a condition-based formulary website, any condition which contains Pharmacy First choices will have a specific treatment pathway containing the recommendations and prescribing notes. These are identified by the following icon:
- All medicines listed on Pharmacy First treatment pathways are taken from the Approved List of products. You can browse a full list of conditions that contain Pharmacy First treatment pathways using the Therapeutic Areas section of this website.
Strenuous efforts have been been made to check the accuracy of the Pharmacy First recommendations within this website, but it is in the interests of practitioners to ensure that it is adequate for their purposes. It is the responsibility of practitioners to ensure that any medicine selected and prescribed within the NHS Pharmacy First Scotland Service is the most appropriate for the individual patient, the dose and duration of therapy are correct and it is licensed for that use.