 PSNC is increasingly hearing from pharmacy teams who are struggling to cope with ongoing financial and operational pressures, and who are concerned about the impact that the strain on the sector will ultimately have on patients.
They are continuing to raise this with policy-makers, making clear the consequences that their decisions are having. To further support those discussions, they have launched two surveys to gather more data on the pressures that everyone working in community pharmacy is under and the impact that this is having. The surveys will give PSNC a snapshot of the scale of the problems and the results will be used in our ongoing discussions with NHS England & NHS Improvement and the Department of Health and Social Care. They will also help us to continue to make pharmacy’s case in our conversations with MPs, Ministers and through the national media. The surveys are both as short as possible and should take around 15 minutes to complete. There are two separate surveys for:
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 You will be aware of some disruption in relation to the supply of LFTs via the national portal over the past few weeks.
The latest national information is that over recent days there have been significant improvements regarding the availability of LFTs via the portal. We have been advised that the LFT supply continues to improve at pace and it is anticipated that over the coming week or so a full return to ordering LFTs via the national portal should be possible. In the meantime, as a very short-term solution over the next 7-10 days, it has been agreed that Pharmacy/Dentistry staff requiring urgent LFT supplies (to enable staff to return to the workplace sooner than would otherwise be the case in the absence of an LFT) should escalate requests to the regional testing cell. This is not intended for individual staff requests as such it would be for requests to be submitted on behalf of the pharmacy/dental practice. Urgent requests should be emailed to: [email protected] in the first instance. A regional colleague will immediately email the enquirer a brief template to complete to capture specific urgent requirements in relation to the LFT stock required. Each request will initially be assessed by the regional team who will work with local ICS/Dental/Pharmacy leads to try to source the LFT supplies through alternative routes in the system. It is important to highlight that requests should only be submitted where all other usual routes for obtaining LFTs have been exhausted and the release of the contingency LFTs will directly impact a member of staff's early return to the workplace. Thank you for your cooperation and support with this interim arrangement.  Following a recent plummet in demand for covid vaccines from the general public, pharmacies and vaccine sites are holding large numbers of vaccine. The local NHS system is nervous that stock may go out of date. National supplies have been reduced to the region to allow the local region to re-deploy stocks using the mutual aid process. It is important that pharmacies providing the service report their stock levels to SVOC using the foundry system. (Okta Login --> Foundry --> LVS Workspace --> Site Stock Manager) This helps enable stock visibility across the region, subsequent re-deployment and reduces wastage.
We have been asked to remind contractors to fill in these vital stocktake Currently there are a large number of pharmacies that have not reported their stock takes. If you are having problems with foundry we would suggest you email SVOC direct to let them know your stock take and also to get help accessing foundry. Secondly SVOC are asking sites to highlight early, ideally at least 10 days ahead of expiry, any vaccines that they believe they will not use before they expire. Sites should flag by emailing SVOC mailbox [email protected]. Given the current reduced demand the potential for vaccines to go out of date is high so can we remind you to ensure you keep an eye on 'use by' dates and ensure you use the shortest dated vaccines first. Please bear in mind re-deployed stock (Mutual Aid) may have shorter expiry when received. |
Copies of our older Paper Based News Letters (The LPC News) can be found by clicking below.
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