The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) has extended the Pharmacy Advice Audit 2021 participation deadline to ensure that no pharmacy misses out the chance to submit its data.
With the latest extension of the deadline, the pharmacy teams now have an additional week to capture information about the advice they give to their patients and local communities, and submit that data to PSNC via PharmOutcomes, the PSNC has said in its latest update.
Amidst persisting Covid-19 pandemic, the audit also attempts to get a sense of how significant workload and staffing pressures are currently.
The PSNC is also 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.
“The audit will provide a critical temperature check – the data will allow PSNC to quantify how many unfunded GP referrals are taking place, and it will tell us more about impact that Covid-19 is having on pharmacy teams and on the advice that patients are seeking from you. This will provide crucial evidence for our ongoing funding discussions with HM Government and the NHS,” the pharmacy negotiator has said.
