Support Staff Specialist Group

Minutes of the meeting held 18th July 2005 at 50 Eastbourne Terrace, Paddington, London

There being new members to the group everyone introduced themselves.

Present:

Dalgeet Puaar, Jennifer Harris, Helen Dalrymple, Jayne White, Liz Fidler, Theresa Leach, Tracey Burrows, Diane Blunden, Sue Ward, Beth Barrett, Vanessa Eggerdon, Jeanette Mayer, Susan Stephens

Apologies:

Lesley Morgan, Barbara Wentworth, Julie Jordan, Gill Risby, Sally Kemp, Karen Nash, Helen Fawcett, Paul Couchman

2. Minutes of the last meeting

Just a few corrections – Liz Fidler’s name was spelt incorrectly on page 2

On page 3 the minutes stated that student technicians would earn 80% if the full salary at the top of the scale, this should read up to 80% of the full salary at the top of the scale.

3. Matters arising (not on the agenda)

There were no matters arising not on the agenda.

a. Discussion of important issues / Sharing practice

Liz Fidler asked if others had recorded an increase in the failure rate on the ACT course. Liz had monitored the recent pass rates within her region and felt the pass rate was falling.

Diane Blunden has been collecting data including Name, Base, and Year of qualification

It was agreed that is would be a good idea to collect and share data on failure rates and use this evidence to benchmark results across the country.

Action: Diane will e-mail the template that she uses to Helen Dalrymple, who will distribute this on e-mail. Information is to be collected from September 2005 to September 2006. Please submit all information to Diane Blunden will collate this information for the group.

Tracey Burrows questioned whether the information regarding knowledge, skills and experience on the Pharmacy Support Worker, Higher Level National Profile was correct? It states put in actual words.

Action: Helen Dalrymple to enquire about this and reply to the group.

Tracey also asked how level 2 candidates were covering taking in and giving out prescriptions, as some of the workplaces she works with do not allow pharmacy technicians to give out prescriptions, let alone ATO’s. The representatives around the table reported that some workplaces were happy to allow pharmacy technicians to issue prescriptions and ATO’s to issue suitable prescriptions. Theresa Leach reported that in her current base hospital, they had developed at training package for ATO’s doing counselling. Helen Dalrymple reported that within the hospital she worked at they had annotated the prescriptions that required additional counselling, so that a suitably trained pharmacy technician could issues these prescriptions. The ATO’s were trained in counselling the on the straight forward pain relief, simple antibiotic courses and when to refer.

Vanessa Eggerdon raised a question on behalf of Julie Jordan asking for clarification regarding ACT reaccreditation. As part of the reaccredidation process the framework states that the pharmacy technician must continue to practice as an ACT. This had been discussed before and decided that it should be at least one session per week, but how long was a session. This was up to local guidance; Liz Fidler had the guidance within her region that the ACT should work as an ACT for a minimum of 12 hours per month. It was more important that it was a regular feature of the ACT’s working, rather than exactly how long. Maintaining competence and currency in dispensary procedures were vital parts of this practice.

Susan Stephens asked how people are covering the generic knowledge for the level 2 NVQ candidates. Helen Dalrymple reported that in Wales, the candidates were undertaking the generic knowledge workbook (available from the Website). Others were covering this as part of induction. It is vital that the candidates cover this knowledge so they have the basics to build the rest of the knowledge on, which was easily covered and identified as matching with the specific areas of work.

b. KSF and ACT

The work that Liz Fidler and Diane Blunden had done had been shared with the APT UK KSF working group and included in this work. Liz and Diane had attended one of the APT UK working group meetings, in May, representing the NHS Education and Development Committee Support Staff Specialist Group, as they had looked at the ACT framework and mapped it against the KSF indicators. At the meeting in May the group produced the basis for a guidance document for pharmacy staff relating to pharmacy technicians and worked on suggested outlines for pharmacy technicians working in the following roles: ACT, Medicines Management, and a Rotational Technician. Other members of the group were producing suggested outlines for pharmacy technicians working as Dispensary Managers and in Procurement. This work is due to be published in the next APT UK Journal. The work will also be circulated to this group. Liz expressed her concerns over the possibility of not being acknowledged for this work. Helen would speak to Sarah Wilcox and Rachael Lemon to ensure that all names were on the work.

c. Modern Apprenticeship funding

This had been raised in the morning meeting, as they thought we had already carried out this work. This had been in the previous meeting’s minutes, but no information had been received by Helen. It was decided that any additional pieces of work will be circulated on separate e-mails, to remind members to submit information.

Action: Helen Dalrymple to circulate a question paper including the following questions who is the main link person within each region, funding duration and any other sources of funding that are accessed. Helen will collate the results and circulate them prior to the next meeting.

d. Student Pharmacy Technicians Banding – AfC

Beth Barrett explained that within her SHA they had problems regarding funding as this had remained the same, but there was the potential for the salary to increase considerably. This was also an issue for pre-reg appointments. As the WDC’s / SHA’s provide the funding per head, not in numbers of posts, so it was not possible for the funding to be allocated for 3 post and only take on 2 students, to allow for the shortfall. Liz Fidler reported that some of the student pharmacy technicians in her region had been places on a percentage of the Band 4 salary using the appendix U ruling. Jeanette Maher had contacted a number of Trusts as pharmacy within her Trust were currently being matched and she had found that there were a mixture of actions being taken on the student technician banding in the absence of a profile. Some areas were using Band 2, others Band 3 and others a percentage of the Band 4 top of the scale salary under Appendix U.

As there is no national profile for student pharmacy technicians hard evidence to present to the funding authorities was hard to come by. A pre-reg profile had been produced at last, and the group wondered if additional pressure may help move the development of a profile forward. APT UK had been asking for a student pharmacy technician profile to be produced, but as yet no success.

Action: Helen Dalrymple, as secretary of the group to send a letter to Darren Leech, President of APT UK outlining the problems being experienced due to the lack of a profile.

4. Correspondence

No correspondence had been received.

5. Registration Update

Lesley Morgan had submitted a report by e-mail.


Lesley reported that the Section 60 Order has been seen by RPSGB Council, it is due to go out for consultation Sept/Oct/Nov 2005 and is expected to be laid before parliament early 2006 this means the 'grandparent' period could end early 2008.


She stressed that it is important that student technicians taken into training from now on complete the NVQ Level 3 Pharmacy services. If they take more than 2 years to complete then they could be outside the grandparent period.


Lesley is not sure how this will affect the underpinning knowledge equivalent to the technical certificate. RPSGB is just drafting proposals to evaluate/ accredit courses.


The application form for techs who qualified outside the UK is almost ready for release. I suggest anyone who requires this form contacts RPSGB.

The group discussed how a student pharmacy technician due to qualify would register in time for a job if the RPSGB are saying they must have 2 full years (104 weeks) work experience.

Action: Dalgeet Puaar to contact Janet Flint at RPSGB to clarify this issue.

6. Policy Update – from Strategy Group

Dalgeet reported back from the Strategy Group meeting that morning.

The Strategy Group had asked if this group could collate information on how student pharmacy technician posts are funded and complete the project on the Modern Apprenticeship funding. They discussed the issue of what the SHA’s have said about bridging the funding gap.

The Strategy group have formed a working party to develop competencies for Pharmacy Education and Training Staff. This group will be Dalgeet, Julie, Lynne, Gail, and Maria. Dalgeet asked if any members of the support staff group were interested. Vanessa, Beth and Jennifer were interested.

Action: Dalgeet to e-mail Julie to add the additional names to the group.

The Support Staff group discussed how this feedback into the main group and the lines of communication. It was suggested that for new and even current members it would be useful to have a flowchart illustrating the relationship of the group with other organizations.

Action: Dalgeet to ask Susan Sanders about a member of the Strategy Group presenting at one of the support staff group meetings to outline the relationships of the group.

The content of an induction pack for new members to the group was discussed and it was agreed it should consist of:

·  A brief outline of each member

·  Key documents:

·  Terms of Reference for the group

·  Minutes of the last 3 meetings

·  A brief history of the group

·  Annual Report

·  Contact list


Lesley Morgan had sent a report as she was not able to attend the meeting she reported the progress on the new Modern Apprenticeship Frameworks. The Foundation Modern Apprenticeship (FMA) which includes the Level 2 S/NVQ in Pharmacy Services and the Advanced Modern Apprenticeship (AMA) which includes the Level 3 S/NVQ in Pharmacy Services.

The FMA candidates must complete S/NVQ Level 2 in Pharmacy Services, Employment Rights and Responsibility (ERR) book, plus Key Skills, Application of Number and Communication both at Level 1.

The AMA candidates must complete the S/NVQ Level 3 in Pharmacy Services, Technical Certificate, Employment Rights and Responsibility (ERR) book, plus Key Skills, Application of Number and Communication both at Level 2.

Further details can be found on the Skills for Health Website (www.skillsforhealth.org.uk). Candidates on the current MA Framework can be transferred to the new framework; details are given in the framework.

Technical certificate: - the BTEC National Certificate in Pharmacy Services is the only Technical Certificate currently available. City and Guilds have been developing a Vocational Related Qualification (VRQ) and have recently been out to consultation. This qualification has been developed with the anticipation of gaining approval as a Technical Certificate.

ACT Technical Services

Richard Cattell had sent an e-mail, as he was not able to attend the meeting. Richard and Sally had met with Lesley Morgan and Paul Spark (Tech. Serv.) from Wales and Richard Bateman (QC) from London to take this project forward. South West have now completed their pre and in-process checking document and this will be available on the SWMIT website from August 2005 (it will also be circulated to Ed and Dev, once complete). The training scheme will be aimed primarily at pharmacy technicians and will share the ACT course for one day (principles of extending roles etc.) and for one day have scheme specific teaching (similar to Wales).

Final checking – no comment for the Department of Health other than response to the consultation paper which is on the website – doesn’t seem to be great support (in terms of the % of responses) for relaxation of supervision but we remain hopeful that the changes required for this final checking to happen can still be effected. Final checking is a regular agenda item on the National QA group. It is proposed that NHS-wide data is collected on errors in technician checking in aseptic services to compare with the data for pharmacists. This will help with attempts to get it accepted by RPSGB and the DoH.

There was supposed to be a meeting of interested parties to discuss a pilot scheme, but as no-one had heard what was happening, Helen Fawcett is going to contact Richard to find out what is happening.

Section 60 order – please stress the message about CPD as if CPD is not demonstrated then practitioners can be removed from the register and the RPSGB are hoping to be able to look back over the years, so stress that everyone should be undertaking CPD now.

National staff survey

Next survey is going to be done in Spring 2006. The Healthcare commission survey is being done, with a deadline of October, some of that data may be used in the 2006 survey.

Assessment and Verification

The group are going to look at the standards of assessment and verification of S/NVQ’s and where possible compare with the assessment and verification being carried out in the community.

The Support Staff Group will set up a working group to look at this issue – those interested were Dalgeet Puaar, Helen Dalrymple, Jennifer Harries, Susan Stephens, Vanessa Eggerdon, Beth Barrett, Tracey Burrow and a representative from the North Wales.

Helen Fawcett represents the NHS Education and Development group at the Technical Services Education and Training Group (TSET), and there is no representation from the Support Staff group, it was suggested that TSET are asked if Sally Kemp can also attend.

CPPE – have money to develop 2 modules for pharmacy in secondary care. They have had meetings to explore the needs of pharmacy support staff, another meeting for junior pharmacists and senior pharmacists.

7.  Level 3 Training Manual