Bank holiday Friday - pharmacies need to be open unless agreed in advance

Dear all,
Please note that all Pharmacies will be contacted by NHSE regarding the hours they will be open over the next bank holiday.

See message from NHSE Below

Dear LPC colleagues
 
This is just a courtesy email to advise that following the release of the national direction on Friday that all pharmacies are to open between 2 and 5 pm on Bank Holiday Friday 8 May 2020, we are starting to contact pharmacies today (as our team has been asked to establish the opening hours for each of our pharmacies).   
 

• We are reiterating to pharmacies the requirement for all stores to open as above.
• We are pointing out however, that there is flexibility for pharmacies to open for an alternative 3-hr period (ie 10-1 / 9-12 etc) should they so wish – but pharmacies will need to confirm the exact hours to our team
• We are reminding pharmacy colleagues to update their DoS profile and NHS England website with their revised opening hours.
• We we will only consider exemptions for individual pharmacies once we have an overall picture of open pharmacies but are likely only be granted for circumstances beyond pharmacies’ control.
• As yet, we do not know whether there will be a similar direction at the BH on 25 May 2020, but we are  asking pharmacies to confirm what their opening hours will be, if this does turn out to the be the case.
• Lastly, pharmacies have been or will shortly be sent an email with a link to enable them to amend the RAG capacity status notification for DoS, which indicates to call handlers when pharmacies are having busy periods, so we are using this opportunity to remind pharmacists to activate the RAG rating by following the detail in the email they have been, or will be sent.  The email goes to the shared mailbox and the teams need to access the email and click on the link to activate the log in.  This is being rolled out by CCG area and I understand that Northumberland pharmacies have all now been contacted.

 
Thanks & regards