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Welcome to Community Pharmacy Lincolnshire News

Welcome to our weekly newsletter.  

In this week's email:

  • Periods of Patient Treatment adjustments by GPs - Are you seeing any extensions?
  • Hypertension Case Finding Service - Important Considerations
  • Antibiotic Awareness and Amnesty Campaign Update
  • In case you missed it: PQS NMS Gateway criterion published

UPCOMING DEADLINES

 
  • PQS Training requirements - staged but early as possible completion advised

PQS for 2021/22 has now commenced.  PSNC have produced a range of resources which can be accessed at the PQS Hub page at https://psnc.org.uk/services-commissioning/pharmacy-quality-scheme/. If you choose to sign up for all domains, an amount of learning is required.  Whilst the deadline for training completion is the date of declaration in February 2022, some training will be needed to both complete gateway requirements and deliver services. To assist with completion of this learning we have summarised the requirements in a table which can be accessed here.  The summary table includes indicative timings and links to CPPE training resources.  We recommend considering the timing of the learning carefully; for example early completion of the CPPE inhaler technique training will allow more time for completion of inhaler technique checks and  'catch-up' NMS as part of the respiratory domain.
 

  • After 30th November: 7th December 2021- Deadline for submission of Antibiotic Awareness and Amnesty Regional Health campaign data onto PharmOutcomes (data collection period 15th to 30th November 2021).  To note, this campaign was changed from mandatory to voluntary via an email sent from the East Midlands team on Friday 19th November.  Please see item in this newsletter.
 
  • 31st December 2021 - PQS Flu Vaccination communication with PCN Community Pharmacy Lead 2021

Per the Sept Drug Tariff – Contractors must have engaged with the Pharmacy Primary Care Network Lead (Pharmacy PCN Lead) to communicate that they would like to be involved in increasing the uptake of flu vaccination to patients aged 65 and over for the 2021/22 influenza season. All communications between the contractor and Pharmacy PCN Leads must be completed by 31 December 2021. You can find contact details for your PCN Community Pharmacy Lead on our website here, where they are listed on a PCN basis.
 

  • CPCS IT Systems Provider pays model Autumn 2021 (final deadline for transfer 31st March 2022)

NHSE&I funding for the two current CPCS IT systems (Sonar and PharmOutcomes) will cease at end of March 2022, with plans to move to a 'provider pays' model where community pharmacies would pay a small charge per completed consultation through the platform. Although this deadline is some time away, as planning and decision making is required, contractors are recommended to start considering which supplier they want to choose well in advance. From the autumn, contractors will be able to transition to their own contractual arrangements with one of the four assured IT providers (Cegedim, Sonar, PharmOutcomes and Positive Solutions).  Find out more here.  
If you have queries about this please contact Daniel at PSNC directly: Daniel.Ah-Thion@psnc.org.uk

 

Patient Treatment Period Adjustments

 

Request for Information from Contractors and Guidance for Contractors

We have been made aware that some GPs have recently changed patient treatment periods from 28 days to 56 days.  Please could you let us know if you notice this happening as we want to feed into the system any instances of this happening because it risks shortages of medications within the system (especially in view of the distribution issues currently caused by lack of delivery drivers, compounded by seasonal pressures at this time). We need to work with the system in Lincolnshire to ensure the more sustainable Electronic Repeat Dispensing route is used as often as possible, to ensure patient supply of medications is not interrupted and this information will be useful in assisting us in this regard.
 

Temporary Safeguarding Payments

If adjustments to patient treatment periods are occurring on a regular basis, it may mean you are entitled to temporary safeguarding payments to compensate for loss of income and to allow increased upfront purchase of stock. You can find full details relating to this on the PSNC website here.

Hypertension Case-Finding Service - Important Considerations

As noted a couple of weeks ago, many contractors will be focusing on flu vaccination at present, but may be looking to offer this service in the future. 

In Lincolnshire, as at Friday 12th November there were 16 pharmacies signed up to provide this advanced service.  If you are thinking about signing up to the service, please ensure you have read the service specification in full. Remember, you need to be able to provide both the in-store blood pressure monitoring and ambulatory blood pressure monitoring if required, for which you will need to have specialised equipment. There is currently a shortage of ambulatory blood pressure monitors available due to a worldwide shortage of micro-chips, so this may impact on the time-frame for delivery of the service in your business. The service specification available here gives full details of the equipment requirements for the service delivery.
 

Resources

As noted in our 11th November newsletter, PSNC shared some links to resources they have developed in a newsletter on 25th October. The detail is included below and the links are available via our website as well. 
New Hypertension Case-Finding Service resources published 
PSNC has published several additional resources to support community pharmacy contractors who are providing or planning to provide the Hypertension Case-Finding Service, which became a new Advanced service on 1st October 2021:

Contractors can also access our Hypertension Case-Finding service webinar on-demand as well as a range of Frequently Asked Questions which were answered after the webinar.
All of the above resources as well as further information on the service can be found on the PSNC Hypertension-Case Finding Service hub page.

Antibiotic Awareness and Amnesty Campaign Update


You should have received the email below from the East Midlands Team on Friday 19th November:

Dear Colleagues
 
Earlier this month we shared communication launching a regional antibiotic awareness and amnesty campaign which commenced on Monday 15th November.  However, we received notification at the beginning of the week that national negotiations between NHSEI and PSNC had concluded, and three nationally mandated health promotion campaigns have been agreed. The first of these, a winter vaccines campaign, is due to start on Monday 22nd November and therefore we are having to withdraw the requirement to mandate participation in the antibiotic awareness campaign. 
 
We are however requesting that all CPs continue with the antibiotic campaign until 30th November to support World Antibiotic Awareness Week.  Please continue to use the campaign letter, data collection sheet, and a variety of other promotional resources that we previously shared earlier in the month for use during this campaign. If you have any queries regarding the campaign, please send an email to the respective NHSE Pharmacy generic mailbox.
 
Thank you for your continued support and cooperation.
 
Best wishes,
Contracting Team
 
Many thanks
Primary Care Support – Pharmacy
NHS England and NHS Improvement –  Midlands
Email: england.eastmidspharmacy@nhs.net
w: www.england.nhs.uk and www.improvement.nhs.uk
Birch House, Ransom Wood Business Park, Southwell Road West, Mansfield, Notts. NG21 0HJ

In case you missed it: PQS NMS Gateway Criterion published

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) has published a spreadsheet showing which community pharmacy contractors are currently meeting the Advanced Services gateway criterion of the 2021/22 Pharmacy Quality Scheme (PQS).
To meet the Advanced Services gateway criterion, contractors are required to have claimed payments for the completion of a minimum of 20 New Medicine Services (NMSs) between 1st April 2021 and 5th January 2021.

If contractors are showing as having claimed for 20 or more NMSs (highlighted in green on the spreadsheet) no further action is required to meet the Advanced Services gateway criterion.

NHSBSA used FP34C month end claims between the period of 1st April and 5th September 2021 to calculate which contractors have already met this criterion. This spreadsheet will be updated on a monthly basis as the PQS declaration period approaches.

Check your pharmacy is meeting the Advanced Services gateway criterion
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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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