New Medicine Service (NMS)
New Medicine Service (NMS) – you will be directed to the PSNC website
Service description
This service will provide support to people who are newly prescribed a medicine to manage a long term condition, which will generally help them to appropriately improve their medication adherence.
Aims and intended outcomes
The service should:
a) help patients and carers manage newly prescribed medicines for a LTC and make shared decisions about their LTC
b) recognise the important and expanding role of pharmacists in optimising the use of medicines
c) increase patient adherence to treatment and consequently reduce medicines wastage and contribute to the NHS Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention (QIPP) agenda
d) supplement and reinforce information provided by the GP and practice staff to help patients make informed choices about their care
e) promote multidisciplinary working with the patient’s GP practice
f) link the use of newly-prescribed medicines to lifestyle changes or other non-drug interventions to promote well-being and promote health in people with LTCs
g) promote and support self-management of LTCs, and increase access to advice to improve medicines adherence and knowledge of potential side effects
h) support integration with LTC services from other healthcare providers and provide appropriate signposting and referral to these services i) improve pharmacovigilance
j) through increased adherence to treatment, reduce medicines-related hospital admissions and improve quality of life for patients.
New Medicine Service – Talking Therapies
You will already be aware that the New Medicines Service provides support for people with long-term conditions newly prescribed a medicine to help improve medicines adherence; it is focused on specific patient groups and conditions.
Long planned changes to the NMS went live on 29th October 2025. The main changes to the NMS were:
- It expanded to include depression as an eligible therapeutic area. This is reflected in the updated service specification and NMS Eligible Drug List.
There is no mandatory training related to the addition of depression to NMS, but a related training programme on consulting with people with mental health problems is included in the Pharmacy Quality Scheme for 2025/26. - The specification wording for point ix. described under ‘The aims and intended outcomes ‘ states that the service is designed to “support integration of community pharmacy with LTC services from other healthcare providers and provide appropriate signposting and referral to these services”
To support you to help those patients presenting with newly prescribed medicines to treat depression your LPC has been working closely with a Nottinghamshire based group called Talking Therapies that offer a free service for patients who may need extra support for their mental health. This service accepts patient self referrals or referrals directly from pharmacists using the link below: For Professionals | Notts Talking Therapies .
Pharmacies will be receiving some Talking Therapy assets in the mail that describes the full service offering, the contact details and leaflets that can be handed to those patients you feel may be in need of further help and support with their mental health. Also if you require more of those assets then please contact AlisonEllis@cpnotts.org at the LPC office who can send out more assets by post.
