By Hannah Boland (Telegraph)

Serial entrepreneur Alex Chesterman is throwing his weight behind an app that lets GPs prescribe medicines and delivers them to patients the same day

Pharmacierge has raised £1.25m from backers including Mr Chesterman, the founder of car site Cazoo and property portal Zoopla, as well as Simon Franks, the co-founder of LoveFilm, with funds to be used to roll out the app more widely across the UK.

The company has developed an e-prescription app through which clinicians can prescribe medication to patients, in a system it says cuts out much of the admin for doctors and removes the need for paper prescriptions.

Private medical practices spend as much as two hours a day on admin tasks related to prescriptions.

Medicines can then either be delivered that same day to people within London, or the next day across the rest of the UK.

Pharmacierge said demand for its services had ballooned during the pandemic, when many people had not wanted to visit pharmacies in person and clinicians had worked remotely.

It has worked with more than 3,000 clinicians so far. It comes amid a wider shift within healthcare systems to offer more virtual care.