UK online pharmacy glossary: terms and acronyms explained

Online pharmacy sites are dense with acronyms, and most of them are never explained on the page where they appear. This glossary defines the terms you will meet across PenCompare and on provider websites, in plain English, with a note on why each one actually matters when you are comparing options.

Disclaimer: PenCompare is an independent comparison platform. This guide is for informational purposes and does not replace professional medical advice.

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A | C | E | G | M | O | P

A

Asynchronous prescribing

Prescribing based on written information you submit, rather than a live conversation. The prescriber reads your questionnaire answers at a different time from when you wrote them, then decides. It is lawful in the UK because the law requires an adequate assessment by a qualified prescriber, not a face-to-face appointment. The limitation is that the prescriber can only work from what you wrote, which is why leaving something out matters more here than it would in a consulting room.

C

CQC — Care Quality Commission

The regulator of health and adult social care providers in England. Providers carrying out regulated activities must register with the CQC, including services delivered remotely rather than from a consulting room. Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have their own equivalents. Note that not every online provider holds CQC registration: what needs registering depends on the model, so the absence of a CQC rating is not proof of anything on its own.

E

EPS — Electronic Prescription Service

The NHS system that sends prescriptions electronically from a prescriber to a pharmacy you have nominated, rather than on paper. Some online pharmacies are registered NHS contractors and can be nominated in the same way as a high street pharmacy. Many well-known online providers are not, and operate privately only.

G

GPhC — General Pharmaceutical Council

The regulator of pharmacies, pharmacists, and pharmacy technicians in Great Britain. Every pharmacy operating lawfully in England, Scotland, or Wales must be on its register, and online pharmacies must display their registration number on their website. The register is public and searchable, and checking it yourself is the single most reliable way to verify a provider.

M

MHRA — Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency

The UK regulator for medicines and medical devices. It licenses medicines, runs the Yellow Card scheme for reporting side effects and suspected falsified products, and takes enforcement action against illegitimate online sellers. Its Distance Selling Logo has not been required in Great Britain since 1 January 2021 and now applies only in Northern Ireland.

O

Off-label use

Using a licensed medicine outside the terms of its licence — for a different condition, age group, dose, or route than the one it was authorised for. It is legal, common, and often well evidenced; it is not the same as unlicensed or experimental. A prescriber taking this route takes on extra responsibility for justifying it, and should tell you that is what they are doing.

OTC — over the counter

A general term for medicines you can buy without a prescription. In UK law this covers two distinct categories: general sales list medicines, sold anywhere including supermarkets, and pharmacy medicines, sold only under a pharmacist’s supervision.

P

P medicine — pharmacy medicine

A medicine that does not need a prescription but can only be sold from a registered pharmacy under a pharmacist’s supervision. This is why an online pharmacy may still ask you a short set of questions for something you could buy at a counter without one.

PIP — pharmacist independent prescriber

A pharmacist who has completed additional training that allows them to prescribe. Many online services use pharmacist independent prescribers rather than doctors, which is legitimate and also affects which regulator oversees the service. They appear on the GPhC register with the prescribing annotation.

POM — prescription-only medicine

A medicine that can be supplied only against a valid prescription from someone with UK prescribing rights. POMs also cannot be advertised to the public in the UK, which is why a site listing them by brand name with prices on its home page is breaking a rule in plain view.

PSNI — Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland

The pharmacy regulator for Northern Ireland, performing the same role there that the GPhC performs in Great Britain. If a pharmacy is based in Northern Ireland, its register entry will be here rather than on the GPhC register.

Frequently asked questions

Because none of the private fee labels are standardised. What one provider calls a consultation fee, another splits into an assessment fee and a prescription fee, and a third folds into the medicine price so it appears to have no fee at all. None of this is necessarily dishonest, but it does make headline prices close to meaningless on their own. The only reliable comparison is the total you pay at checkout, including delivery.

You should not, at least not on a UK site aimed at the public. Advertising prescription-only medicines to the public is not permitted in the UK. Sites do sometimes name treatments in an informational context, which is different from promoting them with prices attached. A home page listing POMs by brand name alongside prices is a genuine warning sign rather than a technicality.

No, and the distinction matters. An off-label medicine is fully licensed; it is simply being used outside the specific terms of that licence, which is legal and often supported by good evidence. An unlicensed medicine has no UK marketing authorisation at all. If a prescriber recommends something off-label, they should say so and explain why — and you are entitled to ask.