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Vacancy for Community Pharmacy Primary Care Network Lead - Lichfield

This week we have received the resignation of Gill Swift, our current Community Pharmacy PCN Lead for the PCN area. I would like to thank Gill for the work she has done in the role over the last 18 months or so; we are now seeking expressions of interest to fill this vacancy.

As a reminder, Primary Care Networks (PCNs) are multi-disciplinary teams of healthcare professionals working together at a local level to deliver joined up patient care. Most Primary Care Networks will cover around 30-50,000 patients registered with constituent GP practices. This PSNC page provides additional information about PCNs and what they aim to achieve.

Across South Staffordshire LPC area there are 12 PCNs – please see the LPC's webpage on the local picture of how practices and community pharmacies align to those.

Getting involved with the work of your PCN

Although general practice will be at the heart of PCNs, NHS England has said that it wants clinical pharmacists (employed by the networks) and community pharmacists to be engaged in the work of the networks.

It is important that community pharmacy teams are fully engaged in the work of PCNs, to optimise their provision of services to patients and because the future development of locally commissioned services will be influenced by PCNs.

Whilst funding for PCN Leads has been largely through elements of the Pharmacy Quality Scheme, from April 2021 your LPC will support work outside of PQS commitments to a maximum of four hours per calendar month, which may include networking with PCN and community pharmacy colleagues, attending meetings with PCN Clinical Directors or other team members, or taking part in meetings, training and development along with LPC and PCN colleagues.

If you work in Lichfield and would like to be considered for the role of Community Pharmacy PCN Lead for Lichfield, please complete the attached Nomination Form and return by email to peter@southstaffslpc.co.uk no later than 5pm on Friday 21st May 2021.

New Steroid Emergency Card - MHRA guidance to be implemented by 13th May 2021

Last month we alerted contractors to the new MHRA steroid emergency card implementation which must be implemented in all healthcare settings no later than 13th May 2021 and in advance of this date we are aagin reminding community pharmacy contractors about their responsibilities on this.
In essence, responsibility for providing the card to relevant patients (those whose treatment with various steroids results in adrenal suppression) sits with the original prescriber, however community pharmacies are asked to keep supplies to replace lost or damaged cards. Note these are NOT a replacement for the existing blue Steroid Treatment cards, but to be used in conjuction with those. You can find more information on this (including where to access both PDF and "hard" copies of the card) at:
https://psnc.org.uk/our-news/patient-safety-alert-steroid-emergency-card/

Virtual Outcomes have also produced two short training packages on the new Steroid Emergency card; the first is aimed at pharmacy team members which all of our contractors will have access to at:
https://www.virtualoutcomes.co.uk/pharmacy-training/
The a second is available to brief external stakeholders such as GPs, practice pharmacists and hospital teams and is designed to talk these teams through the National Patient Safety alert and draw their attention to the things they need to consider to ensure they implement it.
The link to the course is:
https://www.workcast.com/register?cpak=6874433863072851
You can also download a flyer to send to your contacts here.

Relaunch of Extended Care Tier 2a Services

Following the relaunch of the Extended Care Tier 2a services in March, we are getting a number of contractors contact the LPC as despite submitting their signed Service Level Agreement forms, they are not yet able to see the Tier 2a services on PharmOutcomes.

Completion of the sign-up process for each individual contractor is done by NHS England & NHS Improvement after they have completed their due diligence checks; although the LPC continues to support NHSE&I with making the services live on PharmOutcomes, we are only able to do this once approval has been received from NHSE&I. This is dependent on resources in their primary care team, and updates are being received most weeks; the accreditations on PharmOutcomes are actioned either the same working day as the update is received, or at latest the next working day.
The LPC is not in control of the sign-off process therefore if you have been waiting some time to get accredited, please allow some time for this to be actioned and if longer than four weeks since submitting your signed SLA please contact england.pharmacy-westmidlands@nhs.net quoting Extended Care Tier 2a sign up in the subject.

If you are yet to sign up for the Tier 2a services, please note that it is a requirement that you must have already signed up and be delivering Tier 1 services.

This is an NHSEI Midlands Region enhanced service supported by PGD’s. Linked below are the following documents:

Tier 2a services cover the following:

Treatment of Infected Eczema
Treatment of Impetigo
Treatment of Infected Insect Bites

If you wish to sign up to this service please can you ensure that you read fully the attached prior to sending in your documentation.

Please note that once you are signed up to the service you must be able to provide it all days and times that the pharmacy is open. Therefore all locum staff must be aware of the service and be able to provide it. This ensures continuity of service for patients.

Please can you submit all sign up paperwork to england.pharmacy-westmidlands@nhs.net clearly stating Extended Care Tier 2a sign up in the title to ensure these are logged quickly. Should you not be signed up to provide Tier 1 services and wish to do so then you can still do so.
Should you have any queries regarding the above service please send them to the same address and they will be answered in due course.

NHS Service Finder

Just a quick reminder about the NHS Service Finder, which is a free online search tool providing access to information from the Directory of Services (DoS) and nhs.uk. This is an important tool for community pharmacy contractors and their teams, both to search for information (for example) to check on a non-public telephone number to contact a GP practice with a referral or clinical query, but also that other healthcare providers are able to find information about community pharmacies too - making it really important for pharmacy teams to ensure that the information on their pharmacy is accurate and up-to-date.
There is a PSNC webpage to support contractors, however please download the two resources below as a first step to ensuring you are familiar with the site and how to use it:

The PSNC page has some helpful FAQs, including how to get inaccuracies on your own (and other organisations') entries corrected.

Ramadan resources
As part of the Covid-19 Vaccination programme, there has been a significant effort to engage with all ethnic groups, and this has been particularly important for Muslims currently in the month of Ramadan which ends next week. The LPC thought that ICS resources may well be useful for pharmacy contractors engaging with Muslims at this time, so please find below the link to the Ramadan Toolkit which the Stafffs & Stoke system has shared; this is being updated regularly so it’s worth checking back to see if anything new has been added.
https://www.twbstaffsandstoke.org.uk/coronavirus/covid-19-vaccination/resources

The link takes you to the Resources page; once there you will see the screen depicted below; select Resources to share in your community and scroll down to the section for the Ramadan resources. There are also other resources you may find useful which are not specific to Ramadan, but may be of interest to our pharmacies or their customers.