New Medicine Service

The New Medicine Service, or NMS, is NHS jargon for something straightforward: free support from your pharmacist when you have just been started on a medicine for a long-term condition. The first few weeks are when most people quietly give up. NICE estimates that between a third and a half of all medicines prescribed for long-term conditions are not taken as recommended, usually because of a side effect nobody warned people about or a question they did not want to bother the surgery with.

It is not a lecture about remembering your tablets. It is three conversations in which our pharmacist asks how you are getting on, whether anything unexpected has happened, and whether the medicine is doing what it was meant to do. If you have a side effect, we tell you whether it typically settles, whether there is something practical that helps, and at what point it is worth going back to your prescriber. If something genuinely needs changing, we contact your GP practice rather than leaving you to chase it.

The service is free on the NHS. You still pay the standard NHS prescription charge for the medicine itself unless you are exempt, but the consultations cost nothing. Each of the two main conversations takes about ten to fifteen minutes and can happen face to face in our private consultation room or over the phone, whichever you prefer.

Our chemist is on Pinner Road, a short walk from North Harrow and a straightforward bus ride from Harrow town centre, so people fit these conversations around work rather than taking a morning off. Regulars from West Harrow often do the first one at the counter when they collect the prescription and take the follow-ups by phone.

This is the part people get wrong most often. The service does not cover every new medicine. It covers a defined set of long-term conditions, and only medicines prescribed for those conditions. The NHS publishes them as the NMS Eligible Drug List in Part VIC of the Drug Tariff, and we check your medicine against it when we dispense.

The conditions currently covered are asthma and COPD, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, osteoporosis, gout, glaucoma, epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, urinary incontinence or retention, heart failure, acute coronary syndrome, atrial fibrillation, long-term risk of blood clots, stroke or transient ischaemic attack, coronary heart disease, and depression. Depression was added in October 2025 and is the one condition with an age limit: it is for patients aged 18 and over.

So a first inhaler, a first statin, a first blood pressure tablet, a new anticoagulant after atrial fibrillation, or a first antidepressant will usually qualify. A course of antibiotics, a painkiller, a cream for a rash or a one-off treatment will not. You also have to be genuinely new to the medicine, so a change of dose or a change of brand of something you already take does not count.

If you are not sure, ask. If your medicine is not on the NHS list we will still answer your questions properly, we simply cannot record it as an NMS consultation. And if you have just been started on a blood pressure tablet, pair it with our blood pressure check so you can actually see whether the medicine is bringing your numbers down.

Stage one is patient engagement. It happens when you collect the new medicine. We explain the service, check your medicine is eligible, take your consent and agree how and when to reach you. It adds a couple of minutes to a normal collection and there is nothing to arrange in advance.

Stage two is the intervention, and it is the main consultation. NHS rules place it between 7 and 14 days after that first engagement, which is long enough for early side effects to show themselves but early enough to fix a problem before you abandon the medicine. We ask what you are actually taking rather than what the label says, what has been awkward, and what you have noticed. Most of what surfaces here is ordinary and fixable: a statin taken at the wrong time of day, an inhaler technique that means most of the dose never reaches the lungs, a water tablet taken at bedtime that has you up all night.

Stage three is the follow-up, held between 14 and 21 days after the intervention. By then the side effects that were going to settle have usually settled, and we can see whether the changes we agreed have stuck. If a problem is still there, we contact your GP practice with your consent so the prescriber knows before your next repeat is issued.

You can withdraw at any stage without it affecting your prescriptions or anything else we do for you. If you look after someone else's medicines as a parent, guardian or carer, you can take part on their behalf when they cannot consent themselves.

Ask us when you collect the prescription. That really is the whole sign-up. Your GP practice can also point you our way, and hospital teams refer patients to us after a discharge, which is common following a heart attack, a stroke, or a first anticoagulant.

Bring the medicine itself, or a photo of the box, plus a list of everything else you take, including anything bought over the counter and any herbal remedies or supplements. Write your questions down before you come, because almost everybody forgets at least one in the room. If you monitor anything at home, such as blood pressure or blood glucose, bring the readings with you.

It helps if your prescriptions come to us in the first place, because then we see straight away when something is new. Nominate us as your pharmacy and your GP will send repeats to us electronically through NHS prescriptions. If you take several medicines a day, ask about blister packs at the same time.

To arrange a set time rather than dropping in, book an appointment or contact us on 020 8863 6338. We are open Monday to Friday 9am to 6pm and Saturday 9am to 1pm, and closed on Sunday. If what you need is treatment for a new infection rather than support with a long-term medicine, Pharmacy First is the service to ask about instead.