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Feedback or complain (about us or one of our LPCs)

Sometimes things can go wrong, or we (Community Pharmacy Surrey and Sussex) fail to meet someone’s expectations of us. If you are unhappy with the service(s) or support provided by us or your LPC, it is important to let us know so we can improve.

Giving us feedback, or making a complaint are the two ways to tell us what you think. Read more

More information

Flu – national service / PGD

PSNC has a flu-hub where you can find everything you need for the flu season. These pages are updated when the season is underway. If you read these pages outside of the flu season you must check that any official documents are for the current year and season.  Go to PSNC’s flu-hub

For more information 

Flu Training

All pharmacy staff involved in the provision of the Flu Vaccination Service should receive appropriate training relevant to the role they will undertake. There is a free optional Flu Champion module for pharmacy staff to complete to enhance their knowledge in the provision of Flu vaccination which can support pharmacists with the service The course includes a workbook, online assessment, certificate and Flu Champion badge. For more information click here.

Pharmacists must complete a Declaration of Competence before providing the service and this declaration must be updated every two years. The Declaration of Competence Group has published a Vaccination Services DoC (Version 3, August 2019) on the CPPE website. Pharmacists are required to complete this every two years as part of the requirements to be able to offer the NHS Flu Vaccination Service.

Following a review of the previous version of the DoC, which is hosted on the Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE) website, the learning and assessment has been reviewed and the CPPE Immunisation programme has been withdrawn. This has been replaced with key modules from e-Learning for Healthcare on Flu Immunisation.

Face to face training: NHSE&I has determined that pharmacists providing the Flu Vaccination Service need to attend face-to-face training for both injection technique and basic life support (including administration of adrenaline) at least every three years.

Who needs F2F: A pharmacist who last undertook face-to-face training for both injection technique and basic life support in 2017 and would have needed to undertake face-to-face training in 2020 but deferred this due to the pandemic, and those who last undertook face-to-face training for both injection technique and basic life support in 2018, will need to complete their face-to face training in 2021.

The LPC are not offering any face to face training, however here are a number of organisations that provide vaccination training for pharmacists here are some of the providers (there are other providers available on PSNC website here).

Here a sample of training providers listed other training providers are available

Avicenna

ECG

NPA

Numark

For more information 

Formularies across Surrey and Sussex

Surrey has one formulary, whilst Sussex currently has four. The purpose of the formulary is to ensure prescribing is evidence based and cost effective.

For more information 

Forged / fraudulent prescriptions

Fraud

We have been alerted to a number of fake letters on NHS and DHSC letterheads that have been sent to pharmacies:

Please be vigilant; take a moment to stop and think before parting with information that could keep your business or patients safe. Challenge: Could it be fake? It’s ok to reject, refuse or challenge any requests.

If you receive anything suspicious, or are contacted by someone in suspicious circumstances, please report the matter to the police or to Action Fraud 

Suspicions of fraud against the NHS can also be reported anonymously and confidentially online here or by phoning the 24-hour fraud and corruption reporting line on: 0800 028 4060.

Freedom to Speak-Up Guardian

In November 2016, NHS England published Freedom to speak up in Primary Care – guidance to primary care providers on supporting whistleblowing in the NHS. It requires each contractor to name an individual as the ‘Freedom to Speak Up Guardian’ who can ensure that policies are in place and that staff know who to contact if they have a concern; this person must be independent of management within the pharmacy and not be the direct employer.

To support contactors across Surrey and Sussex, Julia Powell, our chief executive officer, has agreed to be the Freedom to Speak up Guardian for independent contractors in the area if they wish. The role will include:

1. At their request, providing independent and impartial advice to the contractor’s staff on potential whistleblowing issues such as:

    • Poor clinical practice or other malpractice which may harm patients.
    • Failure to safeguard patients.
    • Maladministration of medications or dispensing errors.
    • Untrained or poorly trained staff.
    • Lack of policies creating a risk of harm.
      (noting that the first line of advice should be within the contractor)

2.  Access and authority to speak to anybody within the contractor’s organisation; and,
3.  Authority to report a concern externally, if required in accordance with professional standards.

Procedure for contractors wishing to nominate our chief executive officer as their Freedom to Speak up Guardian

    • Please download this Freedom to Speak Up Guardian form and complete the section highlighted in yellow.
    • Print two copies, sign as the contractor and send to CPSS with a copy of your whistleblowing policy.
    • We will then confirm back in writing with a copy of the agreement that this is now in place for your pharmacy.

For more information

GPhC inspections

Pharmacy owners and superintendent pharmacists are accountable for the outcomes of their inspection, so should ensure everyone in their teams is always suitably prepared to host a General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) inspection, including collecting evidence for inspection, continually renewing their evidence, and taking part in training.

The GPhC’s inspection report website is where you can find Pharmacy Inspection Reports. A searchable ‘knowledge hub’ has anonymised examples of excellent, good and poor practice.

More information

GP CPCS

From 1 November 2020, the CPCS was extended across England to include referrals from general practices as well as from NHS 111. Once preparatory work has been undertaken at a local level, GPs can refer patients to community pharmacies to receive a CPCS consultation for minor illness (unlike NHS 111, GPs cannot refer patients for an urgent supply of a medicine or appliance).

Find out here how we are putting this national policy into local practice across Surrey and Sussex

More information

Health promotion campaigns

An important part of the community pharmacy contractual framework is that pharmacies participate in public health campaigns specified by NHS England every year. Read more 

For more information 

Healthy Living Champion

As healthy living pharmacies (HLP) contractors must have at least one full-time equivalent employee trained as a qualified health champion – usually a healthcare or medicines counter assistant –  yet many contractors across Sussex and Surrey may have overlooked this for their public-facing healthcare staff due to the pressures of the pandemic.

It’s important to be reminded that training employees no longer needs to be time-consuming and expensive, especially when there’s FREE training available.

We have joined forces with Health Education England (HEE) South East and award winning HLP specialists Pharmacy Complete to help you train up to three employees to be health champions with easily accessible training that they can take at their leisure. There is no cost for this training – it’s FREE! Click here to sign up.

Incidents - patient safety incident reporting

Recording and reporting patient safety incidents has been a requirement under the CPCF since 2005 and a framework is in place to facilitate this. 

For more information 

Infection control - Covid-19

This entry was updated September 2021

These resources support the latest IPC guidance, including social media assets and posters, to use at entrances of pharmacies to notify visitors that they still need to wear a face covering after the easing of legal restrictions relating to Covid-19 in September 2021.

For more information 

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