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NPA viewpoint: Your pharmacy needs you!

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NPA viewpoint: Your pharmacy needs you!

As the financial year comes to an end, it’s an important time to reflect on your pharmacy’s service performance and how pharmacy teams can become more involved in service provision, says the NPA

At the end of March, the financial year comes to a close, which tends to focus the minds of pharmacy managers and teams, and provides a chance to reflect on the pharmacy’s service performance. For instance, teams might ask: “Have we offered a medicines use review to all patients who could have benefited from such an intervention?”

For many services, recruiting and retaining patients can be difficult, but it can also be a great opportunity for pharmacy teams to become actively engaged in service delivery. To maximise the number of services completed, pharmacies should have clear systems and procedures in place to identify eligible patients, get them to take part and then complete the necessary follow up and records. Pharmacy teams should familiarise themselves with the various aspects of each service, such as eligibility criteria for participation or referral criteria to refer the patient to the pharmacist or their own GP.

Marketing services

Window posters and patient information leaflets are useful methods of promoting pharmacy services to patients. The NPA offers a range of promotional resources for a variety of pharmacy services, available to download from the NPA website. Pharmacy teams can get involved in promotional activities both within and outside of the pharmacy. For example, why not promote the services to eligible patients and members of the public using social media? Or discuss with your pharmacist ways of engaging with local media for key health campaigns, such as World Health Day on 7 April.

Engaging patients

Patients can be identified for services using stickers, notes or stamps and teams should be familiar with the system used in each individual pharmacy. When handing out prescriptions or providing advice over the counter, you may be able to signpost or engage a patient in a service before alerting the pharmacist.

For example, consider a patient who is buying cough medicine and mentions they would really like to be able to stop smoking. You could explain your smoking cessation service and alert the pharmacist if they wish to participate. Or a patient who mentions they have just come out of hospital and their prescription has been marked with an NMS sticker.

You could explain to the patient that the pharmacy offers a free NHS service to help them understand how their medicines work. Good communication skills will be necessary to convince the patient that the service is worth them investing their time in. Discuss with your pharmacist the key messages you want to get across to the patient and how you could deal with any challenges.

Pharmacy support staff may also take responsibility for booking and confirming appointments. An appointment book and appointment cards should be kept in a convenient place. It is a good idea to telephone each patient a day or two before their appointment as a reminder, providing they have given consent to do so.

Incidentally, the NPA’s new NMS resource pack includes advice on how to engage patients. Watch out for the arrival of this pack in your pharmacy soon.

Celebrating success

Financial year end is also an opportunity to reflect on your contribution to the team throughout the year. Don’t forget to celebrate your success when you achieve your goals in relation to service delivery. While it is sometimes difficult to maintain positivity and motivation, focus on what you have achieved and speak to the rest of the team about aspects you may have found difficult or ideas you may have for improving service delivery.

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