NEWSLETTER

Feb

2014

3

March

2013

Chief Executive Officer Dr Lisa Manning PhD, M.R. Pharm.S.Tel: 07912043872 Chairman G BATTEN B.Pharm M.R.Pharm.S.

Sefton Local Pharmaceutical Committee

Changes to BNF distribution

Due to an increase in usage of digital versions of the British National Formulary (BNF) and the British National Formulary for Children (BNFc), paper copies will now only be distributed annually instead of six-monthly. This means that the next editions will not be issued until Sept 2014. All other distribution arrangements will remain the same:

• pharmacies with one registered pharmacist will receive a single copy of the BNF/BNFc

• pharmacies with two or more registered pharmacists will receive 2 copies of the BNF/BNFc

• pharmacies should contact Binleys

( or 01268 495 609)

for any queries relating to the mailing of the BNF/BNFc

Information Governance Toolkit

Pharmacies need to provide information governance assurances to the NHS on an annual basis. These assurances are provided through completion of an online assessment tool, the NHS Information Governance Toolkit (IGT). Pharmacies are expected to attain Level 2 against each of the pharmacy IG requirements apart from Requirement 319, for which a global exemption has now been agreed. Contractors should enter Level 2 attainment against Requirement 319 and add the text ‘Exempt as still under negotiation’ in the Comments. The remaining requirements should be updated as usual, and the assessment should be published once the contractor is certain that the scores reflect the level of attainment achieved. Once published, the exemption from Requirement 319 will be applied during an overnight process. The deadline for submitting this year’s return is 31st March 2014. Find more info at:

Meeting with Public Health

The quarterly contract reporting forms for enhanced services e.g. smoking cessation, EHC etc are available on the LPCs website for you to send to Public Health.

NHS England

It is a contractual requirement as part of your essential services to participate in 6 annual public health campaigns. Up to now we have participated in the Dry January campaign and the next campaign will be No smoking Day. Due to lack of funds it is unlikely that these materials for the campaign will be sent automatically. Instead they are utilising Cheshire and Mersey public health service (CHAMPS)Tel: 0151 666 5123 | Email: . They will send you details of each campaign and you will be instructed to log on to the directed site and order the required materials for each campaign.

NHS commissioned influenza vaccination service – NHS England are holding an influenza debriefing meeting to discuss what worked well and what didn’t for the 2013/2014 service and therefore help with planning for the 2014/2015 service. If you have any information that would contribute I would be grateful if you would contact me on as I understand there were issues with the community pharmacy commissioned service and I think discussing these at the meeting would be an ideal opportunity to improve the service going forward.

Clinical Audit

If you haven’t yet completed an internal clinical audit which is a requirement of your essential services community pharmacy contract (separate to the NHS England directed audit on specials which is also an essential requirement) then PSNC have details of a clinical audit that meets the NHS audit requirements - Community Pharmacy NSAID Audit on Gastrointestinal Safety. This audit has been developed by the NHS East & South East England Specialist Pharmacy Services (SPS) medicines use and safety team and has been piloted with a number of pharmacies over the last few months. The initial results from the pilot audit have shown that it can help identify patients at risk of gastrointestinal bleeds, allowing the pharmacy to highlight this risk to the patient’s GP. More details can be found at:

Acting interim head of meds management for the Sefton CCGs is – Brendan Prescott

EPS2

Norwood surgery went live on 29/01/2014 and Churchtown Medical Centre has gone live on 19/02/2014 there are another 3-4 surgeries potentially to go live within the next few months so please make sure your ready to provide EPS2 services and have trained your pharmacy teams. You can find more information about EPS2 from the connecting for health website

Safety Information

We attended the pharmacy local professional network PLPN and a few issues regarding safety were discussed. It was highlighted the safety requirements regarding the safer use of fentanyl and buprenorphinetransdermal patches and the safer use of oral oxycodone medicines. The care quality commission CQC released a report regarding this which can be found at:

Some of the main recommendations effecting community pharmacies is that fentanyl and buprenorphine should be prescribed by brand and ensure patients using CD transdermal patches have adequate prescriptions and supplies to minimise interruption and omission of therapy.

Recommendations for the use of oral oxycodone medicines state:

Confirm the appropriate medicine formulation is being used. There are fast acting short duration (e.g. Oxynorm) and slow acting, long duration (e.g., Oxycontin) oxycodone products.

There are significant risks of overdose when a fast acting product of short duration is used in error for the slow acting, longer duration products.

Where possible ensure they are prescribed by brand name to reduce confusion.

Check for therapeutic duplication of strong analgesics by two different routes of administration. There may have been an error and the previous route of administration may not have been cancelled.

Confirm any use of oxycodone concentrate products. There are significant risks of overdose if a concentrate product is used in error for a normal strength product. Any use of oxycodone medicines ‘as required’ should have clear guidance on the frequency that the doses can be administered

It has also been reported that there has been an increase in Emergency Supplies of salbutamol inhalers throughout Merseyside. It was reported at the local intelligence network (LIN) that the inhalers are being obtained to open up the airways so that smoking of illegal substances will have improved deposition into the lungs. Therefore we urge pharmacy teams to be more vigilant to requests for emergency supplies of salbutamol inhalers.

It was also noted that strontium will cease to be recommended and current patients receiving this medication will be advised to change to an alternative medication. Therefore it may be wise to check your stocks of the product.

Safety Alerts

A new alerting system for risks to patient safety was launched by NHS England. The alerts will be distributed by the Central Alerting System (CAS). CAS is already used by the MHRA to distribute alerts. The new National Patient Safety Alerting system (NPSAS) replaces the NPSA alerts. There are 3 stages to the alerts Stage 1- ‘warning’ alert to ensure staff are aware of the potential issue so immediate action can be taken. If a stage 1 alert requires further action, a stage 2 ‘resource’ alerts will follow with more in-depth information. Stage 2 will include access to resources to help introduce new measures to reduce risks. A stage 3 alert ‘directive’ for organisations to confirm they have undertaken specific actions to mitigate the risks. A checklist of actions within a timeframe will be issued. Further info is available at national-psa-system/.

Also as a reminder the Community Pharmacy Contract -Essential Service 7 Clinical Governance does refer to alerts and that you should ensure – ‘you have records to show that patient safety communications from the Secretary of State and the NPSA (now NPSAS) have been dealt with’- this includes the pharmacy team and locums

PSNC – Congratulations to Ian Cubbin who has been reelected as the PSNC regional representative

Don’t forget to visit our website for newsletters, minutes etc and if you have any queries do not hesitate to get in touch at: