The National Pharmacy Association (NPA) has launched a new online Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) programme, giving its 6,000 member pharmacies tools to create, customise, manage and distribute procedures from a centralised platform.
The NPA said the programme is designed to simplify compliance and support patient safety, while recognising that pharmacy businesses vary in size and structure.
Members can choose from three levels of SOP support, ranging from downloading, editing and printing documents themselves to managing customised SOPs through a new secure online SOP Library.
The third option, provided through NPA Trusted Partner Pharmsmart, offers a dedicated SOP management platform with features including audit trails and version control.
The centralised SOP Library is included as part of NPA membership and allows pharmacy businesses to store, access and audit their customised procedures in one location, with updates managed across branches.
Jonathan Nobbs, NPA director of membership, said operating procedures were “vital to every pharmacy” and fundamental to patient safety.
“We wanted to combine the unrivalled expertise of the NPA team, boasting decades of experience at the front line of pharmacy, with a state of the art management system allowing our members to amend, edit and track SOPs over one pharmacy or large numbers of branches,” he said.
The NPA said its dedicated team of pharmacist advisers provides documentation, advice and one-to-one support to independent community pharmacies, with the new system bringing these resources into a digital platform.
Nobbs added that the SOP programme was the latest enhancement to NPA membership and followed the organisation's recent package of resources supporting members with their prescribing journey.
“As the largest community pharmacy body in the UK, we’re putting all our resources into ensuring we are with our members every step of the way,” he said.
