PSNC urges pharmacy teams to take part in audit to find out why people visit community pharmacies

The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) has been urging pharmacy teams to take part in an audit that will capture information about the reasons why people choose to visit community pharmacies.

PSNC said that it "is increasingly concerned about the pressures that pharmacy teams are under during the Covid-19 pandemic and also about reports that general practice teams are referring patients to pharmacies for consultations informally, rather than via the agreed Community Pharmacist Consultation Service (CPCS) route."

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The Pharmacy Advice Audit 2021 has been road-tested by ten pharmacies to make it as simple as possible to carry out. It can be completed in just a single day in the week commencing Monday (Jan 25).

The following resources are now available to support contractors and their teams in preparing to undertake latest audit:

Team briefing sheet

The briefing sheet sets out the criteria for inclusion, what needs to be recorded and how to reflect on your pharmacy’s results. It also answers some frequently asked questions as identified during testing with a small number of pharmacies.

Audit template

The audit template provides a simple way to record the required data, making things smoother for data entry onto PharmOutcomes.

Digital guide

This short video describes what the audit aims to capture and how pharmacy teams can participate. It also outlines the quick and easy process of entering data on PharmOutcomes once the audit has been completed and answers some common queries.

“This audit will help demonstrate how you are supporting your community every day and, alongside data from other pharmacies, will assist PSNC in gathering crucial evidence for our ongoing funding discussions with HM Government and the NHS. It will also give a sense of the impact that Covid is having on pharmacy teams,” the pharmacy negotiator said, in its latest update to community pharmacies.