 Community pharmacy contractors are reminded that certain members of staff are required to complete one or both of the Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE) learning packages and e-assessments by the review point (15th February 2019) if contractors are planning to claim for two of the quality criteria of the Quality Payments Scheme.
It is important to note, that it is common to require more than one attempt at CPPE e-assessments before passing and also that if a pharmacy professional, who is required to complete the CPPE risk management training, fails the e-assessment, they will not be able to re-take the assessment for 20 hours. Contractors are therefore advised to consider these points to ensure staff are given enough time to complete their training and pass the e-assessment before the review point. The first training package is the CPPE Risk management guide and e-assessment, which relates to the first element of the following quality criteria:
The second training package is the CPPE Children’s oral health e-learning (in the form of a video) and e-assessment, which relates to the second element of the following quality criteria:
PSNC has produced a CPPE Children’s oral health record sheet which contractors can choose to use to record details of the members of staff who have watched the e-learning video and successfully completed the e-assessment. Contractors are advised to retain copies of the CPPE certificates of completion for all staff members after they have passed the relevant e-assessments as evidence of meeting the two quality criteria. *Pharmacy professionals are pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. FAQsQ. Are locum staff included in the requirements to complete the CPPE learning packages and e-assessments? Yes. This includes locum staff working in the pharmacy on the day of the review so contractors should encourage temporary staff, such as locum pharmacists, to undertake the training and e-assessments. Q. Are part-time staff included in the requirements to complete the CPPE learning packages and e-assessments? Yes. This quality criterion applies to all relevant staff members working at the pharmacy. The number of hours a member of staff is employed for is not relevant for the two quality criteria. Q. Are non-GPhC registered staff able to register with CPPE to complete the children’s oral health training? Yes. CPPE has enabled staff who are not registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) to register on the CPPE website as ‘non-registrants’ to complete this training material. If contractors have members of staff who are unable to register with CPPE, e.g. those not having a work or personal email address to access registration, then they can complete the children’s oral health e-assessment without registration. While this will enable the staff member to undertake the e-assessment and, when successful, print off or save the PDF certificate as evidence of meeting this criterion, this will, however, need to be done immediately after the e-assessment as it cannot be saved on the CPPE website. It will also not be possible for CPPE to provide any personalised support, feedback or a CPPE record for that member of staff. Contractors are therefore recommended to encourage members of staff to register with CPPE to complete the e-assessment if at all possible.
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The UK FMD Working group has issued the following statement to Pharmacies regarding FMD.  Community pharmacies must work towards compliance with the Falsified Medicines Directive (FMD) in time for February 9th deadline irrespective of any Brexit scenario, pharmacy bodies have said today (29th January 2019). The guidance, from the UK FMD Working Group for Community Pharmacy, follows recent meetings between the regulators, the government and the Working Group itself. Chair of the Working Group, Raj Patel, said: “All parties recognise the challenges around FMD and we are confident that the regulators will take a pragmatic and even-handed approach to enforcement. Nevertheless, pharmacies must make efforts to be compliant with the new FMD safety features, by the deadline. Pharmacies must act promptly, but they must also act properly to ensure they are prepared for the new FMD safety features. They must carefully consider the terms of any contract for FMD solutions and make sure they are future-proof in any post-Brexit scenario. Other practical adjustments might be required, such as modifying dispensing workflows and all pharmacies will need to update their standard operating procedures." “However, there will be very few packs of medicines in pharmacies with the FMD safety features, on February 9th, as they will take time to come through the medicines supply system, so inevitably the sector is on a journey towards full implementation.” From February 9th, pharmacies must check the integrity of the anti-tampering device and scan the 2D barcode to mark each pack as decommissioned (or dispensed) in the FMD database. It is understood there will be significant quantities of medicines in the supply chain that do not carry the new safety features, after February 9th, but they can still be wholesaled and dispensed." Pharmacies are expected to have clear standard operating procedures in place to empower individuals to make judgement calls they could later justify, rather than disrupt supply to patients. General Pharmaceutical Council inspectors will not focus unduly on any single issue and will assess the pharmacy in the round considering the health, safety and wellbeing of patients and the public. Visit the Working Group’s website – FMD Source for more information on FMD.  The NHS BSA has launched an online submissions portal to help contractors access and make submissions to the NHS. The portal was initially launched to enable you to submit your end of month prescription data securely to the NHSBSA as well as look at your re-subs and make the endorsements required. However it will now have a submission portal for QP and it is envisaged that other service will be added in time. Contractors may find this a useful service so we have published below some of the information from the NHSBSA website to help you understand the service and how you apply for it. Manage your service (formerly Manage your Submission)
We handle over 1 billion prescription items every year. Our new ‘Manage your service’ application offers an online alternative to the current paper-based process. The service will went live in September 2018 and was tested in 88 community pharmacies, allowing us to identify and fix any issues before launching the service. What our aims are The amount of electronic prescriptions has been increasing, and we’ve been working on digitising:
Pharmacy staff spend a lot of time processing ‘end of month’ claims, and we want to reduce their workload where we can. How this will affect your pharmacy Using the new service you’ll be able to complete your end of month submission online. This means:
You’ll still need to send your paper prescriptions to us as normal. Quality Payment Scheme Following on from the publication of NHS England’s guidance for the Quality Payments Scheme February 2019 review point; you’ll able to claim for a quality payment via Manage Your Service. Manage Your Service provides added benefits over the SNAP survey tool. This includes the ability to provide you; at the time of making your declaration, with confirmation that your pharmacy has been assessed against national datasets as either meeting or not meeting the gateway criteria. This means if you have not met the five gateway criteria, you have the opportunity to take corrective action before you make your declaration. Manage Your Service access authorisation To register your pharmacies and authorise access for individuals for Manage Your Service, you must be the Business Owner, Director or an Individual previously verified via the NHS BSA Information Services Portal (ISP) registration process and need to complete the Manage Your Service Access Authorisation form (Word 244KB). Once NHSBSA has received your completed Access Authorisation form, we will start the process of creating accounts for your users. As part of this process, they will receive an email from Microsoft Invitations inviting them to access applications in the NHS Business Service Authority organization using two factor authentication. The Manage Your Service Two Factor Authentication Access Guide (PDF 1.02MB) is available to help with this process. If you’d like more information about Manage Your Service, contact us at [email protected].  PSNC will be holding a webinar to help support community pharmacy contractors in completing the Data Security and Protection Toolkit for 2018/19 on Wednesday 30th January at 7.00pm. Previously known as the Information Governance (IG) Toolkit, PSNC and NHS Digital have been working together on the development of the new Toolkit and we are keen to assist contractors as they work through it. During the 60-minute webinar representatives from PSNC and NHS Digital will discuss the questions in the Toolkit, talk you through the guidance materials available and answer viewers’ questions on how to make the declaration. To make the most of this session, we would advise taking a look at PSNC’s guidance documents and registering for the Toolkit in advance of the webinar. Once registered for the webinar, you can also submit questions before the event. With contractors required to finalise their pharmacy’s Data Security and Protection Toolkit submission by 31st March 2019, this webinar provides the perfect opportunity to make good headway in its completion. Register for the Data Security and Protection Toolkit Workshop  Draft legislation on Serious Shortage Protocols (SSPs) has been laid before Parliament and should come into force in early February 2019. This follows consultation between the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and stakeholders, including PSNC and other pharmacy representative bodies. SPPs are protocols for pharmacies that will be put in place in the event of a serious shortage of a medicine; they may give pharmacies the ability to dispense less medicine, a different strength or pharmaceutical form of the medicine or an alternative medicine to that prescribed; following appropriate discussions with the patient. SSPs are part of the work being carried out by Government and the NHS in case there is a no-deal exit from the EU, summarised by Dr Keith Ridge here. It is envisaged that where serious shortages occur, each medicine would have its own SSP which will need to be developed carefully to ensure that it can be implemented in practice. PSNC will be working closely with DHSC on this. The draft legislation now laid is intended to provide the legal basis for the introduction of these SSPs. PSNC supports this legislation as part of the measures that will help to manage any serious shortages of medicines, such as those which may occur if the UK exits the EU without a ratified deal (a no-deal Brexit). Key aspects of SSPs are that they will be:
SSPs will link to a patient’s prescription although, formally, supply to the patient will be against the SSP. The draft legislation can be found here and is included in (but separate to) UK legislation implementing the final provisions of the EU Falsified Medicines Directive and Delegated Regulation. The DHSC consultation response can be found here. PSNC responded to the DHSC consultation on SSPs and were pleased to see that their comments and observations had been taken on board. The changes should help by giving DHSC a framework to follow to manage serious shortages of medicines, as and when they do occur. PSNC has also welcomed the speed with which DHSC has consulted on the proposed legislation and that the legislation is likely to come into force in early February 2019, but work to address the practical issues associated with any introduction must now begin. The practical issues are considerable and PSNC has sought to identify them here. They will continue to work closely with DHSC to ensure that the introduction of any SSP is practical for community pharmacy and that any costs incurred are recognised. The introduction of SSPs also has implications for community pharmacy contractor’s Terms of Service, which PSNC will be discussing with the Department.  The latest NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) weekly gateway criteria report shows that 2,207 contractors have only updated/validated one or two sections, not the required THREE sections, of their NHS website profile and are therefore, not currently meeting the NHS website gateway criterion. Urgent action is required to ensure all THREE sections have been updated/validated otherwise these contractors will fail the NHS website gateway criterion and will not be eligible for a Quality Payment.
Contractors are reminded that even if one or more sections are correct, they still need to log into their profile and validate this correct information during the required time period (between 00:00 on 3rd December 2018 and 23:59 on 15th February 2019) as well as update any information in the three sections that is no longer correct. The table below shows the breakdown of contractors who have updated/validated at least one section but not the required three sections on their NHS website profile: Sections updated/validatedSections NOT updated/validatedNumber of pharmacies Opening timesServices and Facilities358Opening times and ServicesFacilities43Opening times and FacilitiesServices1,779ServicesOpening times and Facilities7Services and FacilitiesOpening times19FacilitiesOpening times and Services1Total number of pharmacies who have not updated all three sections and are therefore currently NOT meeting the NHS website gateway criterion2,207 The report also shows that 36 contractors have updated all three sections but are not showing as having met the NHS website gateway criterion as they do not have Medicines Use Reviews (MURs), or the New Medicine Service (NMS) listed as a service offered from their pharmacy on their profile. If contractors are intending to meet the Advanced Services gateway criterion as they offer either of these services, the service must be listed on their NHS website profile, otherwise their profile will not be up-to-date, and they will therefore not meet the NHS website gateway criterion. In addition, 2,650 contractors have not taken any action (have not updated/validated any of the required THREE sections of their NHS website profile or for Distance Selling Pharmacies, have not emailed the NHSBSA Provider Assurance Team with the required information) and are therefore, also currently not meeting the gateway criterion. Contractors are encouraged to download the latest NHSBSA weekly gateway criteria report to check whether their pharmacy is listed as not having met the criterion and if required, take corrective action as soon as possible to ensure they meet the NHS website criterion by the review date (15th February 2019). Further information on how to meet the NHS website gateway criterion can be found at: psnc.org.uk/qpnhswebsite  Following on from a previous letter sent by NHS England, Public Health England and the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England has today (23rd January) published an update on vaccines for the 2019/20 Flu Vaccination Service.
As stated in the previous letter, the vaccinesrecommended for the 2018/19 season continue to be recommended for the 2019/20 season. Both are currently licensed and available to order for use in the United Kingdom:
NHS England has determined that the high-dose trivalent vaccine (TIV-HD), which has also been granted licensed status, has a significantly higher list price and will therefore not be commissioned by NHS England or reimbursed for use in the Flu Vaccination Service 2019/20. Contractors are therefore advised not to purchase or administer this product for the Advanced Flu Vaccination Service. A summary table detailing indicative age groups, licensure status and NHS cost per dose is included as an annex in the letter. Click here to view the letter   Click here to visit the GP2P Page As you will know the exciting new service GP 2 Pharmacy has been launch in South Tyneside and has gained some media interest. Patients may have heard of the scheme and may ask you about it. Please click here to see below the GP Collaborations website for details of the scheme including which doctors are running it. It would be worth reading this as patients will be looking at this and may as you questions. Also below is an interview from BBC Newcastle with our secretary Louise as well as GP's and the University of Sunderland discussing the service.
The next NHS England commissioned Public Health Campaign starts on 1st February 2019 and runs for 1 month
Very soon you will receive a letter and poster from NHS England with more information about the campaign. You will then receive everything else you need to run the 'Love Your Heart' campaign from the BHF and PHE (leaflets and posters) in time for February. The objective of this campaign is to have a million conversations with people about CVD prevention through community pharmacies here in North Cumbria and the North East. Please ensure the whole team is briefed about the campaign and how to engage in brief advice conversations using the materials provided. Moreover, this campaign will start a wider conversation about how community pharmacy can help tackle CVD in England. Thank you in advance for your support with this February campaign. We would just like to remind Pharmacies involved in the GP 2 Pharmacy service that they need to enter the consultation details on to Pharmoutcomes as soon as possible after the consultation as the module sends a letter to the GP about the outcome.
Please don't leave these to put through at the end of the month as you may do with other services. Remember early entry will also ensure prompt payment for the service too. |
Copies of our older Paper Based News Letters (The LPC News) can be found by clicking below.
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