Blog Posts

Priority Access to UtilitiesPharmacies to get priority access if shortages occur

14/11/2022

The LPC has learned that contractors are eligible to sign up for priority access to utilities and would like to ensure all contractors are aware of this.

Inclusion on this register should mean your pharmacy has priority access to electricity, water and gas supplies in the event of shortages. This is a useful precaution to boost your pharmacy’s business continuity plan.
(Community pharmacy contractors confirm each year that business continuity arrangements are in place via their Data Security and Protection toolkit declarations.)
How to sign-up?
Your utility bills may explain how to sign-up and provide contact details. Alternatively, identify who your energy supplier is at the Energy Networks Association’s (ENA’s) website or search for “PSR” and or “Priority Service Register” on your utility company websites.
Whilst signing up, tick the information-sharing box to confirm your details can be shared between utility companies for PSR purposes.
When requesting priority (usually via an online form):

enter two or more contacts;
confirm your email address for receiving messages about planned or unexpected service;
select the reasoning for your priority, including the options: medical equipment->refrigerated medicines; and chronic/serious illness; and
include the word ‘pharmacy’ within your request.

You will need to send a separate request to your water supply company explaining you are a ‘sensitive property’, as relevant data sharing between water and other utility companies is not yet in place.

Annual Work Force Survey - Must be completed by Contractors by 30th Nov

11/11/2022

Workforce challenges are currently adversely impacting most sectors of the UK economy, but they are being particularly acutely felt within community pharmacy with serious consequences for pharmacy contractors.
PSNC and the other national pharmacy bodies have called for improved workforce planning to be undertaken by the Government and NHS, but for this to happen, high quality workforce data for community pharmacy needs to be available.

Mandatory completion of the workforce survey – required by 30th November 2022For this reason, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), NHS England and PSNC agreed that it would become a Terms of Service requirement for contractors to complete the annual Health Education England (HEE) community pharmacy workforce survey, which will provide a full picture of the community pharmacy workforce, including identifying the number of vacancies and regions where these are particularly hard to fill.

Regulations were laid in Parliament which made this a requirement of the Terms of Service from 1st October 2022. All pharmacy contractors are required to submit data via the survey, during the eight week submission period, which closes on 30th November 2022.

The data is being collected through two different methods:

an online survey; or
data collection at head office level through an Excel template.

What will I need to do?
Pharmacy contractors will be contacted via emails from the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) to complete the survey online, with the first email having been sent on 6th October 2022. The email will contain further information on the process and a link to the online survey.
Those that do not receive an email invitation from the NHSBSA can expect their head office to submit data on their behalf. If in doubt, check with your head office.

If you think your pharmacy should have received an email invitation to complete the survey from the NHSBSA, but you cannot find one, please email pharmacyteam@hee.nhs.uk.

Contractors who do not return the survey, will receive reminder emails from the NHSBSA to complete the survey before the closing date.

For further information see the PSNC page by clicking here.

PQS Aspiration Payment Deadline - 4th November 2022

24/10/2022

We would like to remind contractors that they can claim an Aspiration payment for PQS 2022/23. The deadline to do so is 4th November 2022 at 23:59.

The payment is claimed through the Manage Your Service (MYS) portal and the process to claim is vary simple and will take just a few moments. Contractors will be paid their Aspiration payment on 1st December 2022.

The Aspiration payment is optional; if you do not want to claim it, it will not impact your ability to claim a PQS payment during the declaration period. However if you are planning to undertake the PQS work you may find the earlier payment useful.

To find out more about 2022/23 PQS and Aspiration Payment click here to visit the PSNE Webpage.

Pharmacy Representation - Response to the National Contractor Vote

24/10/2022

Following concerns about the wellbeing of our pharmacy teams during some of these tough times, one of newer members Andrea Ford, has put together a useful article of information for pharmacy teams. We would recommend you familiarise yourself with what is available and be vigilant with your work colleagues and look out for anyone who may need support.

Pharmacy WellBeing Support

It has been a challenging and unprecedented couple of years for everyone in community pharmacy, both at home and at work. Faced with cost-of-living concerns, increased workload, funding challenges and ongoing staffing shortages, we are now entering the cold and flu season with Covid-19 rates on the rise again. Despite facing a challenging winter ahead, we and our teams continue to work hard but unfortunately increasing numbers of us are feeling burnt out.

While we strive to improve the health and wellbeing of our patients, it is important not to forget about our own wellbeing along the way.

With this in mind, we would like to raise awareness of the wealth of free resources available from Pharmacist Support to help support, maintain and improve your mental health and wellbeing.

Pharmacist Support is an independent, trusted charity providing a wide variety of support services to pharmacists and their families, former pharmacists and pharmacy students.

On the Pharmacist Support website https://pharmacistsupport.org/ you will find a range of free resources to support you both at work and at home. These resources cover a breadth of topics from mental health and wellbeing to physical health & finances. They also include videos, workshops and printable resources.

Free counselling sessions are available to those who are experiencing mental health issues such as anxiety and depression, a change in family circumstances, bereavement and other psychological issues. There is also Listening Friends available for pharmacists to reach out and speak to a peer in confidence over the phone.

You can sign up to receive free wellbeing resources direct to your inbox for you and your team at https://pharmacistsupport.org/about-us/contact-us/newsletter/

If you haven’t already done so, we would encourage you to take a look and please spread the word to anyone you feel would benefit from this support.

As always, thank you to everyone in our community pharmacy family for all your incredible work.

Pharmacist Revalidation Reminder - Some Deadlines for Renewal and Revalidation approach

10/10/2022

This is a reminder to all pharmacist and technicians about the revalidation and renewals with the GPHC
Many have a registration renewal deadline of 31st October which fast approaching.

This is just a reminder in case you still need to make a submission or a payment.

Not everyone has the same deadline so in order to see your personal time make sure you log in at
https://www.mygphc.org/

South Tyneside Substance Misuse - Update

24/8/2022

Following a meeting with Humankind / STARS we agreed it would be helpful to remind pharmacies of the following message to improve patient care and help minimise harm to patients:

If a pharmacy becomes aware of a patient receiving therapy on a blue form (eg supervised methadone) being admitted to hospital, then the pharmacy should inform STARS immediately and PAUSE the prescription. The prescription should ONLY be restarted on advice from STARS.
Please be aware of the three day rule and remember to inform STARS if a patient misses 2 days of doses.
If the pharmacy receives a batch of prescriptions, say 5 weeks, this does not mean that the client has an appointment in about 5 weeks time as there is very likely to be an interim appointments. Consequently if asked “when does my prescription run out?” Please advise client to contact STARS for their next appointment as opposed to saying "you have x weeks left on your prescription." - STARS have detected that patients sometime believe they do not need to attend interim appointments once they have a batch of prescriptions at the pharmacy.

GP CPCSPractices Engaged - Service to Take Off - Ensure Teams are ready.

22/8/2022

The LPC has had discussions in Gateshead & South Tyneside with the place based teams (formerly known as CCG's) and we understand that GP practices are now very keen to engage with GP CPCS. As a consequence contractors are advised to re-familiarise themselves with the referral process and keep an eye out on Pharmoutcomes (or any other platform you have commissioned) for referrals.

It is vital that pharmacies act on referrals to ensure the service is a success. We have had some feedback where some pharmacy staff have been unaware of the service or have not been able to access the IT platforms. We ask that all Pharmacies ensure that their staff fully understand this national service and ensure it is embedded in day to day practice.

We would like to remind contractors who offer the service that they will have signed up to this via the national sign up and consequently the pharmacy's details will be available to GP practices to use for referrals. So if you have signed up, you are very likely to receive referrals and it is important that you are able to deliver the service in a timely manner.
The fact that GPs will be using the service more often is good news for contractors, and very much welcomed by the LPC as it will lead to improved service for the patients and adds extra renumeration to pharmacies offering the service.

Click Here to access the PSNC webpage for further information and guidance around the CPCS service.

Annual Report & AGM 2022 - Virtual AGM now open

19/8/2022

We have now opened our AGM Process for 2022. A letter has been sent out to contractors.
A copy of the letter can be obtained by clicking here.
This years annual report is now available for download from the Gateshead & South Tyneside LPC AGM webpage.

Pharmacist Needed

11/8/2022

Following on from our message earlier about the Urgent and Emergency Care CPCS Pilot in Gateshead (See Below)

We are looking for a Pharmacist to help with the pilot. We need a pharmacist to spend some time with the triage team at the Urgent Care centre to help them make appropriate referrals to community pharmacies.

We are hoping to have someone work with the Blaydon team on 22nd August. The time will be remunerated. If your are interested please contact our secretary Louise on l ouise.lydon@gandstlpc.net

Thanks
Sami

Urgent & Emergency Care CPCS Pilot - Pharmacies in Gateshead Invited to Join

10/8/2022

NHS England are looking for pharmacies who currently offer CPCS service to join the national pilot enabling pharmacy to receive CPCS referrals from Emergency and Urgent Care centres. In particular Pharmacies in Gateshead are needed as the Urgent Care at the QE hospital and Blaydon are due to be involved in the pilot very shortly.
Further details are provided below. This is a great opportunity for pharmacies in Gateshead to receive more CPCS referrals as well as become more embedded in the local system. We would encourage all CPCS providing pharmacies in Gateshead to sign up. Especially if you are located near to the urgent care centres. We asked volunteers for this a while back however it is now open to all the pharmacies in Gateshead on a first come first served basis until all the places are used up.

We would encourage pharmacies to sign up today to make sure they are included.

Pilot Details
This is be another CPCS referral route in addition to existing 111 and GP services.

This part of the pilot is open to pharmacies already providing CPCS in Northumberland, North Tyneside, Newcastle and Gateshead
Click Here to see the service specification. (The specification references the need for pharmacists to have completed the CPPE CPCS training, which is currently unavailable, therefore if you have not completed it this will not preclude you from joining the pilot.)
There is a participation fee of £665 for joining the pilot with the expectation that your pharmacy will fulfil all the requirements in the service spec, including the evaluation of the pilot and if your pharmacy is selected for an interview an additional fee will be applicable.
Your application to join the pilot is made by an electronic registration declaration through the NHS BSA registration site set up specifically for this pilot. The link to register for the service is shown in section 3.1 on page 10 of the attached service spec. It can also be accessed by clicking here

.The NHS BSA application link is now open until sufficient pharmacies have been accepted onto the pilot.
If you would like to be part of the pilot, apply as soon as you can, as applications will be taken on a first come first served basis.