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Exclusive: Marketing materials from last year that display a leading PMR provider’s branding describe a ‘managed nomination’ function touted as reclaiming the nominations of patients whose prescriptions had moved to rival pharmacies.

P3pharmacy has seen marketing materials with RxWeb’s branding that referred to a “new option for pharmacies to manage nominations” in the form of a newly created checkbox in the ‘Patient Details’ screen. 

There is no suggestion that RxWeb currently offers this function to its customers or any evidence that it was ever deployed. 

The materials – which include what appears to be a marketing email and a 19-page PDF dated October 2025 – said that if customer pharmacies enabled the ‘Managed Nominations’ checkbox, this would enable the system to reverse a patient’s decision to nominate a different pharmacy.

The PDF explained: “RxWeb queues a nomination check for any patient that you dispense an EPS repeat prescription too [sic]. 

“This ‘system’ check takes place 14 days after dispensing.  

“The new option means, should a pharmacy have consent from a patient to manage their nomination, you can check the Nomination Management Consent box. 

“Then where a system check takes place, if the resulting pharmacy is not yourself, the system will automatically update the pharmacy back to yourself.”  

The marketing email described the function as “a powerful feature designed to help you retain your patients and protect your pharmacy’s margins”.

The company has declined to comment on the origin of these marketing materials. At the time of publication, the PDF can be accessed on the company’s website. 

When approached for comment, RxWeb told P3pharmacy: "The feature you refer to is not part of RxWeb".

Asked if it had ever promoted the managed nomination function to its customers, RxWeb declined to comment. 

NHS England did not comment on the case directly but told P3pharmacy it has reached out to PMR providers on this issue. 

An NHSE spokesperson told P3pharmacy: “No pharmacy IT supplier should change a patient’s nominated pharmacy without their consent or refuse a request to move to a new pharmacy. 

“We have written to suppliers to warn them about this issue and highlight the legal requirements on how patient data from the national Personal Demographics Service can be used.”

The General Pharmaceutical Council commented: “Patients must give informed explicit consent if they want to change their nominated pharmacy.”

The question of whether some pharmacy technology providers allow their customers to re-nominate patients who have gone elsewhere generated controversy in late 2025 amid concerns that some patients' wishes may not have been respected and NHS guidelines may have been breached. 

In late November, Community Pharmacy England said it had heard of a “few isolated cases” of patients being automatically switched by “some PMR systems,” which CPE described as potentially “a serious matter” before adding: “Patients must give informed, explicit consent if they want to change their nominated pharmacy.”