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Welcome to Community Pharmacy Lincolnshire News

Welcome to our weekly newsletter.  

In this week's email:

  • Making a difference: Pharmacy supporting well-being
  • In case you missed it: PSNC report shows importance of community pharmacy in supporting population health needs
  • GPCPCS update, engagement events and webinar links - claim your £300 by 30th June

UPCOMING DEADLINES

  • Weds 30th June - Claim GPCPCS set-up payment - more details in this newsletter
  • Weds 30th June - Pharmacy Quality Scheme (PQS) Part 2 2020/21 work completion deadline, more details here.
  • Fri 18th June - Workforce survey completion, more details here

PSNC encourages all contractors to participate in this voluntary survey, as the results will help inform the future planning and funding in relation to the development of the community pharmacy workforce across the NHS in England. The data from the previous workforce survey has also been used to the benefit of contractors by PSNC and LPCs in local and national negotiations on the development of community pharmacy services.

Making a difference: Pharmacy supporting well-being

As we gradually move out of the Covid-19 pandemic period, it is important that we return to supporting people to live healthier lives. Community pharmacies have a vital role to play in people’s health and well-being and self-care, as they are accessible, local and no appointment is needed to visit them. as an LPC we understand that local pharmacy teams can give advice, guidance and signpost individuals to external support services as well as highlight any products that will help support a healthy lifestyle and we want to highlight the great work of community pharmacies as much as possible.

On Monday, the team at Newland Pharmacy in Lincoln held a stop smoking drop-in event.
 

 
The pharmacy team were on hand to offer members of the public advice and guidance on stopping smoking, including support services available in the county. The event was well attended and Lincolnshire Co-op hope this will be one of the first of many events focused on well-being across the county. Services available include a 12-week supported smoking cessation programme, for which five individuals signed up on the day and a further two expressed an interest, with many others taking contact details and/or noting what was available. Hopefully more people will come forward over the coming weeks to access help to quit smoking for good.

Lincolnshire Co-op Pharmacies were very keen to put on a socially distanced, Covid-safe event, to enable people to focus on their overall health and well-being, highlighting the support that local pharmacies can offer to people throughout the county, not just when they are unwell or need to get a prescription, but also when they are looking for support to live healthier lives. 

If any other pharmacies are involved in similar events please let the LPC know so we can promote and share the great work community pharmacies are doing in Lincolnshire.
 

PSNC Report highlights important role of community pharmacy in healthcare

Early in 2021, 5,830 community pharmacies took part in a PSNC audit to try to quantify the number of informal patient consultations happening in their pharmacy. The pharmacies recorded all consultations over one day (or for however long it took them to reach 20  consultations). The pharmacies carried out the audit between 25 January and 12 February 2021 and between them they recorded data on 114,898 patient consultations. Advice following the dispensing of a prescription, along with formal referrals from the NHS Community Pharmacist Consultation Service, were not included.

The audit enabled PSNC to measure the reliance that the public has had on pharmacies through the COVID-19 pandemic, and the additional pressure that this has put on pharmacy teams. This data will help demonstrate the sector’s value to the public and the NHS and support PSNC’s negotiations with HM Government.

Key findings:

  • On average, pharmacies undertake 17 consultation per day / 1,125,540 consultations per week / more than 58 million per year.
  • Each week, just under 130,000 informal referrals from General Practice and NHS11 are received into pharmacy.
  • Every week pharmacies provided advice to over 730,000 people (nearly 38 million people per year) seeking advice for symptoms.
  • Every week pharmacies provide advice to over 263,000 people (13.6 million people per year) seeking advice about an existing medical condition.
  • On average, each consultation took just over 5 minutes – this means 90 minutes per day are spent providing these clinical consultations.
  • Almost a quarter (24%) of the pharmacy consultations also included advice and support related to COVID-19 and these consultations took on average 20% longer than a non-COVID-19 consultation.
  • If the community pharmacy had not been there, 50% of patients reported they would have visited their GP, resulting in an additional 74 appointments in each GP practice each week in England.
  • An additional 70,000 people (3.3. million people per year) would go to A&E or an NHS walk-in centre every week if they could not get advice from their pharmacy.

The full report can be downloaded from the PSNC website here.

GPCPCS Roll-out - Update, engagement events and claiming your £300 set up payment

Contractors only have until 30th June to claim the £300 GPCPCS set up payment and many of the 112 pharmacies in Lincolnshire offering the CPCS service have as yet failed to do so.

It has come to our attention that the recordings of the webinars included in the emails relating to claiming the £300 set up payment provided by the regional team here are no longer operational. We have been asked to distribute the following in their place:

"GP referral pathway to the NHS Community Pharmacist Consultation Service: Please see this recording of joint webinar on the pathway held with the RCGP on 27th May 21." 

Alternatively, if you still need to fulfil the engagement criteria to be able to claim your set-up payment of £300, you can attend or watch one of the engagement webinars we are holding as an LPC. 

Last week we sent out an invite to these webinars as per the link here.  These webinars are just for pharmacists and their pharmacy colleagues, to update them on GPCPCS roll-out progress and will cover all of the main elements to fulfil the engagement requirements relating to claiming the £300 set up payment. This will also be an opportunity to ask any questions you or your colleagues may have. If you would like to attend one of the two webinars we have set up, please register at the appropriate link below:

Wednesday June 23, 2021 07:30 PM 
Register in advance for this meeting:
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEsduiorD4tE9IPcqlKrjcx8kcyyY64RGdb 

Thursday June 24, 2021 01:00 PM 
Register in advance for this meeting:
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIqfu6srD4uGNeTqxo0HB1WaW9hM-S9N_Nb 

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

The webinars will be recorded and shared if you are unable to attend and would like to watch them at a later date.  

The recorded, contractor webinars will be placed on the dedicated CPCS page on our website which can be accessed here as soon as possible after 24th June, just scroll down the page to get to the GPCPCS section.  You will also find lots more information about CPCS on this page.
 

GP Engagement, Roll-out and Useful Documents

We have been holding engagement events with General Practice colleagues to roll-out the service, with all PCNs starting the process slowly by the end of June, with an ambition to fully roll-out by the end of the summer.  We have developed and shared a toolkit to assist in this roll-out.  Whilst most of the toolkit contains contact details for pharmacies, suggested scripts and process/set up information specific to GP practices, there are two documents contractors may be interested to see.

  • GP Toolkit: FAQ document for General Practice re GPCPCS, which can be accessed here
  • GP Toolkit: Conditions suitable for referral, based on the national guidance, which can be accessed here

In addition, another useful document is the flow chart which lays out the GPCPCS process in a simple colour-coded format can be accessed here. This could be printed out and put somewhere that is easy to see in the pharmacy to assist in the roll-out.

Please note, while GPs in Lincolnshire will ask the patient to call the pharmacy, those 'cross-border' may not, so it is vital you continue to check your nhs.net pharmacy mailbox three or four times a day at least to ensure referral are not missed.

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Community Pharmacy Lincolnshire are continuing to update and refresh our website. Let us know if there are any specific things you'd like to see, You can email us at info@pharmacylincolnshire.org

Remember, you can also contact us using info@pharmacylincolnshire.org with any questions, queries or feedback you may have.
Lincolnshire Local Pharmaceutical Committee is the voice of NHS pharmacies in Lincolnshire.  For further information about the work we do, contact chief.officer@pharmacylincolnshire.org or visit www.pharmacylincolnshire.org 
Copyright © 2021 Community Pharmacy Lincolnshire, All rights reserved.


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