Value is not a synonym for the lowest price. In pharmacy, a saving that creates rework, weakens a pathway or hides a safety problem can move cost rather than improve the system.
The National Medicines Value Forum 2027 is built around that harder question. Its published agenda covers productivity, outcomes, analytics, pathway redesign, medicines supply and future priorities. A pharmacy owner or leader should arrive with one decision that needs better evidence—not a general ambition to collect ideas.
When and where is the National Medicines Value Forum 2027?
PM Healthcare schedules the forum for Thursday 25 February 2027, from 9.10am to 4.15pm, at 30 Euston Square, London. It is a face-to-face, multi-stream event for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians working across primary and secondary care.
- Take one medicines-value decision, its baseline and the limits of the available data.
- Separate clinical, operational, financial and patient-experience evidence before comparing options.
- Return with a bounded next step, named owner, governance route and review date.
Confirmed National Medicines Value Forum 2027 details
The organiser’s official National Medicines Value Forum 2027 page confirms Thursday 25 February 2027 at the Royal College of General Practitioners, 30 Euston Square, London NW1 2FB. Registration opens at 8.30am, the programme starts at 9.10am and the published finish is 4.15pm. The page currently gives 5pm on 24 February as the booking deadline.
The official description says the face-to-face, multi-stream conference is aimed at pharmacists and pharmacy technicians from primary and secondary care. It frames the day around optimising medicines, improving outcomes and delivering greater value across the NHS. The organiser has published a programme outline, but individual speakers and some session details may still change.
Published sessions cover the future of medicines value, business intelligence and prescribing dashboards, pathway redesign closer to home, biosimilars and real-world evidence, medicines supply and alternative delivery models, horizon scanning, sustainability and priorities for 2030. Two slots are marked as sponsored sessions. Treat the live agenda, registration terms and organiser disclosures as the final source before booking.
Which pharmacy colleagues should attend?
The forum is not presented as a community-pharmacy trade show. Its primary and secondary care audience means an independent owner should first test whether the published agenda overlaps with a real local pathway, medicines problem or partnership decision.
A pharmacist independent prescriber may need to understand how a pathway moves between settings. A superintendent may be examining governance, workforce or supply dependencies. An operations lead may be trying to reconcile activity and cost data. A pharmacy technician may be closest to the hand-offs, exceptions and duplicated work that are invisible in a board-level summary.
Choose the delegate by the unresolved question and their ability to act afterwards. Seniority is useful only when it brings the right context and authority. A colleague who understands the process but cannot secure time for follow-through may return with accurate notes and no change. A decision-maker who lacks operational detail may accept a compelling conclusion without seeing the work required to reproduce it.
The event is a weaker fit when the pharmacy has no current medicines-value question, no baseline, no partner route and no capacity to test an idea. An interesting agenda is not enough to justify taking a colleague away from the business. Record the opportunity cost beside the ticket and travel cost.
Build a medicines-value decision brief
“Find ways to save money” is too blunt for a medicines-value brief. NHS England’s medicines optimisation overview describes value through clinically effective and cost-effective use, the right choice and timing of medicines, patient involvement and safe routine practice. The pharmacy’s question should preserve that wider frame.
Start with the decision. It might concern whether to take part in a local pathway, invest in data capability, change a hand-off, prepare for a prescribing service or challenge avoidable work around supply. Then write what would have to be true for each option to be responsible.
- Which population, branch, service or pathway is in scope?
- What problem is visible now, and which source shows it?
- Which outcome matters to patients, the pharmacy and the wider system?
- What cost, capacity, quality or safety measure could move in the wrong direction?
- Which organisation owns each part of the pathway?
- What approval, information-sharing or contractual route would be required?
- What result would support proceeding, changing the design or stopping?
Use the definitions and reconciliation checks in our pharmacy data analytics guide. If the question begins with a defined standard and a performance gap, the pharmacy audit guide helps connect action to remeasurement. A forum can challenge the brief; it should not be allowed to invent the problem on the pharmacy’s behalf.
| Evidence lens | Question to take | Common blind spot |
|---|---|---|
| Clinical and quality | What benefit, harm, suitability and follow-up does the option affect? | Activity is presented as an outcome |
| Patient experience | Who can use the pathway, who leaves it and where does choice sit? | Only completed users are counted |
| Operations | Which staff, systems, hand-offs and exceptions make the model work? | Unpaid rework and queue displacement disappear |
| Financial | Which costs and benefits sit with each organisation and over what period? | A system saving is assumed to fund the pharmacy |
| Governance | Who is accountable, who can approve change and how will failure be noticed? | A promising pilot is mistaken for a transferable service |
Use the agenda against the decision
The morning session on productivity, outcomes and population health may help define what value means at system level. Ask how the presenter separates better outcomes from lower spending, which time horizon is used and where cost or workload moves when a pathway changes.
The business-intelligence and prescribing-dashboard session is relevant only if the pharmacy can connect the displayed measure to an action. Ask about the denominator, data lag, exclusions, coding variation and the person responsible for responding. A dashboard that nobody owns can make a problem more visible without making the system more capable.
Pathway redesign and care closer to home should prompt questions about community-pharmacy capacity, referral quality, records, communication, escalation, follow-up and payment. NHS England’s 2026 commissioning guidance for community pharmacy prescribing-based services links expansion to clinical leadership, commissioning, governance, professional support and neighbourhood working. A conference example does not remove those conditions.
Supply, biosimilar and horizon-scanning sessions may sit outside the direct authority of an independent owner. They can still explain dependencies and questions to take into local conversations. Distinguish insight from delegated authority: learning about a system choice does not make the pharmacy the commissioner, prescriber or contract owner for every part of it.
Challenge the evidence, not only the conclusion
A case study can be valid in its own setting and still fail to transfer. Ask where it happened, who was included, what the comparison was, how long the observation lasted and which resources were already in place. A hospital, integrated-care or general-practice result can generate a good community-pharmacy question without providing a ready-made answer.
Ask what is missing. Does the analysis include people who never entered the pathway, unsuitable referrals, failed contact, medicines waste, staff training, incident response and the opportunity cost of displaced work? Were financial values observed, modelled or assumed? Was the intervention the only material change during the period?
NHS England’s current medicines optimisation opportunities update points users to current topic information and national dashboards while explaining that the earlier national guidance will not be updated for 2026/27. That is a useful discipline: always check whether a framework, benchmark or dashboard is current before placing it inside a business case.
Keep the pharmacy’s regulatory duties visible. The GPhC standards information makes pharmacy owners accountable for meeting the standards every day. A claimed efficiency cannot override safe management, competent staffing, secure information, suitable premises or the safe and effective provision of services.
Keep education and commercial influence visible
The official programme marks two sponsored sessions. Sponsored content is not automatically irrelevant, and unsponsored content is not automatically complete. The important control is visibility: know who funded or delivered the session, which claims are supported, what alternatives were excluded and whether the pharmacy is being educated, promoted to or both.
Do not use a conference conversation as procurement due diligence. If a product, data platform or delivery model appears relevant, record the claim and request supporting information. Later, compare suppliers against the same requirements, security questions, integration needs, implementation responsibilities, support terms and exit conditions.
Protect confidential information while networking. Use anonymised process examples and ranges where helpful. Do not take patient-identifiable data, confidential partner material or commercially excessive detail into a conference discussion or demonstration.
Turn the day into a controlled next step
Book a review before the delegate travels. Within two working days, ask for one page containing the original decision, the strongest evidence heard, the most important limitation, the implication for the pharmacy and the smallest responsible next step.
That step may be to reconcile a dataset, speak to an ICB or health-board partner, map a hand-off, seek governance advice, obtain a current policy, reject an option or design a bounded test. Give it an owner, deadline, measure and stop condition. Avoid a long list of actions that compete with the pharmacy’s existing priorities.
At 30 days, ask whether the forum changed the decision or only the vocabulary. A useful outcome may be a better-defined question or a decision not to proceed. Record the reason. Good event follow-through protects the business from permanent pilots and protects the team from work that was never properly authorised.
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Frequently asked questions
When is the National Medicines Value Forum 2027?
The organiser schedules it for Thursday 25 February 2027, with registration from 8.30am and the published programme running from 9.10am to 4.15pm. Check the live page before travelling.
Where is the National Medicines Value Forum 2027?
The official event page lists the Royal College of General Practitioners, 30 Euston Square, London NW1 2FB.
Who is the medicines value forum for?
PM Healthcare describes the event as a multi-stream conference for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians from primary and secondary care. Pharmacy owners should compare the final programme with a defined local decision before booking.
How should a community pharmacy prepare?
Take one decision, a traceable baseline, the relevant patient and operating pathway, known data limitations and clear authority boundaries. Book a post-event review and decide in advance what evidence would justify a test, a redesign or no further action.
Saam Ali
Founder & CEO, Pharmacy Mentor · MRPharmSSaam Ali is a pharmacist, digital strategist and the founder of Pharmacy Mentor. He has worked across community pharmacy, healthcare marketing and digital product development since 2012, helping independent pharmacies build modern online services and reach more patients.