Blood pressure check service

Blood pressure check service

Blood pressure check service

This service allows community pharmacy teams to offer a blood pressure check followed by 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM), if required, to identify those with undiagnosed hypertension. The pathway is in line with NICE guidance.

Without referral from general practice, community pharmacists can only opportunistically provide the service to patients:

  • Aged over 40 years
  • Not previously identified as having hypertension
  • Have not had their blood pressure measured by a healthcare professional within the previous six months

In addition to opportunistic testing for a specific category of patients, general practice can refer ANY patient for a clinic blood pressure reading or for 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring.

Please refer to the service specification for more details.

Service specificiation

Members of the public can find a local pharmacy offering this service by utilising the NHS post code search tool.

Find a pharmacy that offers free blood pressure checks

Contraception service

Contraception service

Pharmacy contraception service

From Spring 2023, pharmacies have been signing up to offer the pharmacy contraception service. This gives people the option of attending their local pharmacy for repeat contraception after their initial consultation and prescription by their GP.

Visit the NHS England website for details of how to access the service.

Where can I access this service?

Please note pharmacies are continuously signing up to offer this service. A PDF directory document with the latest list of participating pharmacies in Northamptonshire can be found on the Support from your pharmacy page on the Intergrated Care Boad website.

Resources

Contraception Service Webinar Slides 11th July 2024 NHSE Midlands.pdf [pdf] 1MB

Recording of the webinar: Community Pharmacy Contraception Service Webinar 11 July 2024 (youtube.com)

Pharmacy First

Pharmacy First

Pharmacy First

The Pharmacy First service was announced as part of the Primary Care Access and Recovery Plan in May 2023. Pharmacy First is a new NHS Advanced Service for Community Pharmacies and was formally launched on 31 January 2024.

The service will include seven new clinical pathways and builds upon the previous Community Pharmacy Consultation Service (CPCS). General practices should refer patients to pharmacies using an integrated GP IT solution. Practices will receive information back on consultation outcomes.

This toolkit is aimed at general practice and community pharmacy teams, but it may also be of benefit to staff working in other sectors such as urgent and emergency care. Within this toolkit you will find a variety of resources that can be used to support the implementation of the Pharmacy First service. It also contains resources for growing the service and resolving issues that you may experience.

Pharmacy First service elements

The Pharmacy First full service is made up of the following three elements, which registered community pharmacy will deliver under the umbrella term Pharmacy First:

1. Pharmacy First (urgent repeat medicines supply)

  • This allows UEC and 111 settings to refer patients to community pharmacy for a supply of an urgent repeat medicine
  • General practices are not able to refer into this element of Pharmacy First

2. Pharmacy First (NHS referrals for minor illness)

  • Previous Community Pharmacy Consultation Service (CPCS) with no changes (see description below)
  • This allows patients to be referred from general practice, UEC or 111 settings to a community pharmacy for a consultation with a community pharmacist. The pharmacist will assess the patient, offer advice, recommend treatments, or refer to another setting or service if needed.

The NHS Community Pharmacist Consultation Service (CPCS) is a national Advanced Service to refer patients requiring low acuity advice, treatment and urgent repeat prescriptions to community pharmacies.

The service aims to reduce pressure on the primary and urgent care system, particularly Accident and Emergency and GP out of hours. The service will support the integration of community pharmacy into the urgent care system.

GP-CPCS Training Video for SystmOne

This video is a short training video for Care Navigators in Northamptonshire explaining what is the GP Community Pharmacist Consultation Service (GP-CPCS) and how to refer into this.

GP-CPCS Training Video for EMIS

This video is a short training video for Care Navigators in Northamptonshire explaining what is the GP Community Pharmacist Consultation Service (GP-CPCS) and how to refer into this.

Find documents relating to GP-CPCS here

3. Pharmacy First (clinical pathways)

Pharmacy First participating pharmacies

97% of community pharmacies in Northamptonshire are signed up to deliver all elements of Pharmacy First. You can find pharmacy details in the following ways:

  1. Integrated GP IT referral system (SystmOne practices using PharmRefer or EMIS practices using embedded system) – when sending a referral, the system will automatically return nearby pharmacies that are currently able to offer the Pharmacy First service
  2. NHS Service Finder – a tool for healthcare staff to search for live services close to a defined postcode – search for ‘Pharmacy First’ under Type of Service

Resources – community pharmacy

  1. Pharmacy First - Process for updating DoS Poster [pdf] 128KB
  2. NHS111 Pharmacy First - Referral Escalation Actions Poster[pdf] 147KB – how to access the 111 healthcare professionals line
  3. National communications materials to download – including social media content and key messages
  4. Training – community pharmacists are being offered a range of fully-funded, flexible training to expand your clinical skills and improve patient care.
    • CPPE with NHS England have developed a Pharmacy First self-assessment framework, which pharmacists can use to assess their knowledge in relation to the service and to identify any gaps in their knowledge, which need to be filled.
    • Cliniskills is free and available to all community pharmacists
    • Agilio Primary Care iLearn – access to the Pharmacy First Library, with seven free courses available to access​

Other resources

Resources – general practice 

  1. Pharmacy First symptom poster (including inclusion and exclusion criteria) [pdf] 390KB – printable posters for GP reception teams detailing inclusion and exclusion criteria for Pharmacy First minor illness and clinical pathways
  2. Pharmacy First Pack for Receptionists and Care Navigators[pdf] 2MB – NHS England Midlands and Northamptonshire ICB produced Pharmacy First summary aimed at GP reception teams and care navigators. This can be used to support training
  3. Pharmacy First FAQs for Healthcare Professionals (Detailed Version) [pdf] 261KB
  4. NHS England Midlands Pharmacy First Resource Pack[pdf] 1MB  – produced by NHS England Midlands
  5. National communications materials to download – including social media content and key messages
  6. Introduction to Pharmacy First for GP Practices presented by Dr Joanne Watt
  7. Information on Pharmacy First for receptionists and care navigators presented by Dr Joanne Watt
  8. Midlands PharmRefer Multifactor Authentication (MFA) Guidance for General Practice [docx] 2MB
  9. Animation on how the Pharmacy First service works

Lateral Flow Device Testing

Pop up Icon depicting a lateral flow test

Lateral Flow Device Tests

The NHS LFD tests supply service for patients potentially eligible for COVID-19 treatments started on 6 November 2023.

Aims of the service

To offer eligible at-risk patients access to LFD tests to enable testing at home for COVID-19, if they develop symptoms of infection. A positive LFD test result will be used to inform a clinical assessment to determine whether the patient is suitable for and will benefit from NICE recommended COVID-19 treatments

What the service will provide

A walk-in service where patients or their representatives can collect one box of 5 LFD tests from a participating community pharmacy on confirmation that the patient is part of the potentially eligible for COVID-19 treatments cohort.

Find a pharmacy that offers free COVID-19 rapid lateral flow tests using the post code search via the link below:

Find a pharmacy that offers free COVID-19 rapid lateral flow tests - NHS (www.nhs.uk)

Palliative and end of life drugs

Palliative and end of life drugs

Palliative and end of life drugs

Medications prescribed for symptom control in palliative care can be taken to any community pharmacy for dispensing. However, community pharmacies participating in the palliative care medicines stockist scheme for Northamptonshire ICB are required at all times to keep in stock palliative care medications (supply chain permitting).

Where can I access the service? 

A full list of community pharmacies participating in the palliative care medicines stockist scheme in Northamptonshire, along with the medications that they stock, can be found in this directory document [pdf] 143KB.

Find documents relating to palliative and end of life drugs here

Public Health Resources

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Public Health Resources

As part of the Professional Information Network (PIN), North Northamptonshire Council’s Public Health Team have shared an Alert to the PIN, regarding the circulation of suspected adulterated substances, causing harm, adverse effects and hospitalisations:

Professional Alert - Adulterated Substances [pdf] 188KB