**1. Introduction**

Pharmacy technicians in Great Britain were first accepted onto the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) register, the pharmacy regulator, in 2011 and practice to the same GPhC professional standards as pharmacists [1]. Since registration, they have gained increased recognition for their contribution to the healthcare agenda as their roles, scope of practice, and autonomy increase. This is partly due to the realisation that many 'traditional' pharmacists' roles have become increasingly technical due to the introduction of automation and enhancement of information technology as well as the changing focus of practice to become person/patient-centred.

As a result, particularly in the hospital sector, with specific training, these extended roles have evolved from traditional pharmacy technician activities such as dispensing and stock management, to final accuracy checking (in the UK this is a nonclinical check for accuracy of prescribed and dispensed medicines, as opposed to the clinical check conducted by a pharmacist for clinical appropriateness for a patient), medicines optimisation skills\* (see Table 1), and pharmacy management. All of these roles have previously been traditional pharmacists' roles. However, although the UK governmen<sup>t</sup> vision for the community pharmacist role has significantly changed from the supply of medicines to the clinical provision of patient care—and this gives opportunities for pharmacy technician role development—this has been slower to evolve in community pharmacy. Currently, pharmacy legislation relating to the 'supervision' of the preparation, assembly, sale, and supply, including dispensing, of medicines from GPhC-registered pharmacies prevents pharmacists from leaving the pharmacy for significant periods

of time [2]. Therefore, pharmacy technicians have not been able to assume responsibility for all activity within the dispensary in the same manner as that seen in the hospital setting.

Albeit, at a varying pace across the di fferent sectors and settings, the pharmacy technician landscape is changing, and in addition to the traditional settings of community and hospital, pharmacy technicians are now increasingly located within care homes and GP Practices (doctors surgeries and health centres) performing very much a clinical role as part of medicines optimisation\* teams.

In recent years, there has been some growth in the body of literature on extended/advance roles and although these are generally limited to small local studies, they do provide insight into pharmacy technician role development [3–7]. The literature also highlights the positive contribution that pharmacy technicians, with specific training, can make to pharmacy services and patient care, with the general theme that the extended roles release pharmacists for more patient-facing clinical activity and further developing their clinical skills and knowledge to train as nonmedical prescribers. On a more global scale, it should be noted that releasing pharmacists time is not always the reason that pharmacy technicians scope and autonomy has increased—there are countries with rural and remote environments and populations where with little infrastructure and few pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and other support sta ff operate autonomously out of necessity [8].

**Table 1.** Medicines optimisation definition and activities undertaken by pharmacy technicians.
