Pharmacy National audit 2014/15 - Important Information

As part of the 2014/15 funding settlement, it was agreed that  the first English national audit to be conducted by all community pharmacies will take place during March and April 2015.

Since the introduction of the Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (CPCF) in 2005 community pharmacies have been required to carry out an annual audit where the topic of the audit was determined locally by the PCT or latterly by the NHS England area team.

Choosing a national topic allows the audit to focus on a priority issue for the NHS, in this case the provision of urgent and emergency care. The audit is focussed on the emergency supply of medicines and it is hoped that positive data from it alongside other data from NHS 111 and GP Out of Hours providers, will help make the case for the commissioning of community pharmacy emergency supply services nationally.

Following piloting late last year, PSNC have just agreed the final paperwork for the substantive audit with NHS Employers and NHS England. The paperwork still has to go through NHS England’s gateway process and NHS England also has to set up a website to allow contractors to report their consolidated audit data. As a consequence we expect the final version of the audit paperwork will not be issued for up to 2 weeks.

The PSNC We have been able to put some basic information on the audit on the their  website ahead of the publication of final audit paperwork; this is available at psnc.org.uk/nationalaudit.  The final audit paperwork will be put on that page once it is published by NHS England.

We will also put a copy on our website.

Pharmacy contractors must undertake the audit in one of two defined two week periods:

Period 1 – Monday 9 March to Sunday 22 March 2015 (inclusive) or
Period 2 – Monday 23 March to Sunday 5 April 2015 (inclusive)


PLEASE NOTE - IMPORTANT

In order to get a good range of results from pharmacies across the country, it is very important that there is a good spread of pharmacies undertaking the audit across the two periods. Ideally half of pharmacies should undertake the audit within each period.

When PSNC agreed to the national audit being undertaken as part of the CPCF changes for 2014/15, it was also agreed to seek the support of contractors and LPCs to try to ensure that there is an even split of contractors undertaking the emergency supply audit across the two audit periods.

We understand that AIM and CCA members will receive guidance direct from their head offices to ensure an even split between their pharmacies doing the audits in each period.

To help ensure that the remaining contractors are evenly split across the 2 periods we suggest that we use the last digit of your ODS Code (F code) to determine the audit period:

Odd figure – audit period 1 - Monday 9 March to Sunday 22 March 2015 (inclusive)
Even figure – audit period 2 - Monday 23 March to Sunday 5 April 2015 (inclusive)

Your F code can be found on your month prescription submission document.

Should you have any queries please contact us.

For your convenience the latest information about the audit is below.  We will keep you updated as mor information is released

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Purpose of the audit

The audit may help to improve the quality of services in three areas:

a) Community pharmacy: services and practices in the pharmacy may be influenced by the results of the audit. For example, the audit will establish the number of patients accessing repeat medication out of hours in the audit period. Pharmacy teams could use this information to work with local GP practices to identify patients who would benefit from management of repeat prescriptions through the NHS repeat dispensing service or who may need more help and education about ordering their repeat medication.

b) Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG): the audit will highlight the number of patients requesting repeat medication out of hours which may prompt CCGs to review the following issues with their GP practices:

• Improving information to patients in the out of hours period;
• Improving information about repeat prescription ordering systems and the repeat dispensing service; and
• Ensuring requests for repeat prescriptions made at the end of the week are dealt with before the weekend.

c) NHS England: support the development of national policy regarding access to urgent and emergency care. 


The detail of the audit

The aims of the audit are to understand: 

• the reasons behind patients requesting/requiring an emergency supply;
• the reasons why an emergency supply was not provided (where that was the case); and
• the patient’s subsequent course of action had an emergency supply not been provided.

Following piloting late last year, PSNC has agreed the final paperwork for the substantive audit with NHS Employers and NHS England. The paperwork will be published by NHS England shortly, once it has been approved by their internal governance process. Please keep an eye on the PSNC website as we will highlight the publication of the audit paperwork there as soon as it happens. 


When should the audit be completed?

Pharmacy contractors must undertake the audit in one of two defined two week periods:

Period 1 – Monday 9 March to Sunday 22 March 2015 (inclusive) or
Period 2 – Monday 23 March to Sunday 5 April 2015 (inclusive)

In order to get a good range of results from pharmacies across the country, it is very important that there is a good spread of pharmacies undertaking the audit across the two periods. Ideally half of pharmacies should undertake the audit within each period.

The second period covers part of the Easter public holidays which is a busy time for healthcare providers, including community pharmacies, but as a consequence it is also expected that requests for emergency supplies will be increased. This should provide plenty of data for the audit.  

Pharmacies can choose in which of the defined two week periods they wish to undertake the audit, but PSNC is asking Local Pharmaceutical Committees (LPCs) to try to ensure there is an even spread of pharmacies undertaking the audit across both periods. Please look out for communications from your LPC to explain which audit period they would like to you to take part in.

PSNC has asked the multiple pharmacy groups to do the same within their pharmacies. Consequently pharmacies in multiple groups may want to check with their head office which period they should select to undertake the audit.

Once the audit data period is over, pharmacies should collate their results and then submit these to NHS England’s online reporting system; details of how to do this will be contained in the final audit paperwork. 


Do pharmacies have to undertake the audit?

Yes, undertaking the audit is a contractual requirement. If a pharmacy does not undertake the audit it is a breach of their contractual responsibilities. 


What to do next

• Decide which audit period you are going to undertake the audit within. Seek advice from your LPC or head office before making this choice.
• Obtain copies of the audit paperwork. This may be emailed to you by your NHS England area team or you will be able download it from this web page (a news story will be posted on the PSNC website and sent out via our email newsletters once the audit paperwork is published by NHS England).
• Follow the instructions in the audit paperwork on completion of the audit.
• Submit your collated audit data to NHS England via their web-based system.

It is expected that the collated results of the audit will be published later in 2015 and the data will be used by NHS England and CCGs to consider whether they can work with GP practices and community pharmacies in order to improve services to patients.