HEREFORDSHIRE & WORCESTERSHIRE LPC

New Pharmacy Contract LPC Communications: Number 2

This is the second regular Contract update, which will be numbered so that you will know that you have had them all. Back copies will be on the LPC website.

This update concentrates on getting the basics in place before we move on to the quality criteria, which we will cover in update 3 along with a plan of supporting activities that we will be providing over the next few months. Included in this update:

  • Terms of Service of current contract reminders
  • SCR
  • Gateway Criteria

Terms of Service

First and foremost is to ensure that you have covered off all the basic contractual requirements, thereby protecting yourself from any breaches of terms of service and enabling you to proceed to the gateway criteria and on to the quality criteria. Advice on areas of the Contract are available on PSNC website key links are shared below:

Whilst some of the contact details may change in the future (check all LPC updates & websites), essentially you need to cover the following and send to the email or postal address below. Note keep a copy of everything sent, request acknowledgement and document everything.

Pharmacy Team, West Midlands NHSE, St Chad’s, 2nd floor East, 213 Hagley Road, Birmingham, B16 9RG.

  • 100 hour Pharmacies are required to submit a monitoring form monthly to NHSE
  • Copies of COCs need to be kept for reference however currently they do not need to be routinely submitted until further notice – to be moved to PharmOutcomes in due course
  • Clinical Audit with all supporting paperwork to be submitted by all pharmacies annually no later than 10 working days from end of March. Usually you will need to complete 1 practice based clinical audit of your choice and ADDITIONALLY an audit as directed by NHSE. There has not been an NHSE audit announced so far this year, but this will change in the future.
  • CPPQ results published annually by all pharmacies no later than 10 working days from end of March and NHSE notified where published (this could be a poster in the pharmacy, on your website or NHS Choices for example – note one of the quality criteria requires it to be on NHS Choices)
  • An annual complaints report is to be submitted by all pharmacies no later than 10 working days from 31st March

The following also must be completed but have an alternative process.

  • MUR/NMS quarterly reports by all pharmacies must be submitted no later than 10 working days from end of June, September, December and March. This currently is to the above email / postal address. The process is changing in Arden, Herefordshire & Worcestershire. You will be informed in advance by NHSBSA and NHSE; but this change may be as early as January 2017. You will then have to send returns via a form to NHSBSA. Once an area is switched you will either upload the completed quarterly spreadsheets into an online survey tool.

More information on this process is available:

  • IG Toolkit completed and submitted/published annually no later than March 31st

IG Toolkit Site: https://www.igtt.hscic.gov.uk/igte/index.cfm

Further information:

All pharmacies must complete and submit this annually. This will also need to be redone if a change of ownership takes place. Community 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). Requirements for IG change annually, and Version 13 of the IG toolkit was released on 29th May 2015. The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) has produced business continuity materials ( to assist pharmacy contractors to comply with the business continuity planning.

  • Ensure CPAF questionnaire completed and submitted by the time specified
  • NB: Any NHSE directed health promotion campaigns are a mandatory part of the Pharmacy Contract and you must collate evidence to show that you have supported it and submit any information in the manner requested. The first for 2016/17 from NHSE is the Diabetes 15 Essential healthcare campaign running 14th November for 4 weeks, more will follow. Currently participation in campaigns promoted via public health is encouraged but not mandatory. It is worth noting that to meet HLP requirements a total of six campaigns a year must be followed including those directed by NHSE. Keep all your evidence of participation.

Summary Care Records (SCR)

Once set up and a ’test prescription’ has been submitted, a payment of £200 will be made to the pharmacy. This payment will no longer be available after March 31st 2017 so ensure that you are set up by then. Additionally, one of the quality framework payments is around use of SCR. We are expecting a handful of face to face training events to be made available over the coming months across the West Midlands area so look out for dates near you. This is fundamental to many future opportunities and you are encouraged to get set up asap.

If you are not currently set up, details can be found at

If you are set up don’t forget to ensure all pharmacist smartcards, including locums are updated to use SCR.

The smartcard office can be contacted for Worcestershire on 01926 482622/3 and for Herefordshire Service Desk (01432) 260160

A checklist and all the information that you need to get up and running with SCR, once the face to face training has been completed by one member of your pharmacy is available on PSNC and NHS Digital:

;

The link to CPPE e-learning:

Gateway Criteria

Once the basics have been covered, there are four ‘gateway criteria’ that you must achieve to work towards eligibility for any of the New Contract Quality Framework payments. This means that if you wish to claim at the first opportunity in April 2017, you need these in place before the end of March 2017.

  1. EPS live – you must be set up for and using EPS.

Guidance on all things EPS can be found at and

  1. NHS Choices – your NHS choices page must be up to date and you are required to have a mechanism for updating it on a regular basis. You must update it before the end of March prior to the first Quality Criteria Assessment. Whilst you may have fully completed it in the past there have been many changes to the format of the page including pre - prepared texts for many of the services which should now be being used as standard. There will be more advice on this coming from PSNC over the next month. Current information is available on: . This includes links to template service descriptions.

Registration requests and enquiries should be made the NHS Choices Helpdesk ( or 0845 650 4865). General support is also available by contacting .

You need

  • your unique reference number
  • Your log in ID
  • Your log in password
  • Editing rights for comments
  • page editing rights

Registering for management rights: There are two types of management rights that pharmacies can register to obtain:

  • Web Editor rights allow an individual to update the editable information on their pharmacy profile e.g. service details or opening times.
  • Comment Administrator rights alert an individual to the publication of moderated patient feedback (a rating and/or free text comment) on their profile, and allow the individual to publish (subject to a moderation process) a response to that feedback.

It is for a pharmacy contractor to decide whether they would like the same staff member or two different staff members to perform these separate functions. More than one staff member can be registered linked to a role and one staff member can be registered linked to more than one pharmacy profile.

Back in December 2012, the NHS Choices team sent a letter to all pharmacies, except CCA and AIMp member companies, outlining the arrangements for registration. If you have not already been fully set up on NHS Choices:

  • Email the NHS Choices helpdesk () with your request to activate one or both of your management rights.
  • In the email, please quote the unique reference number that can be found at the top of the letter from the NHS Choices team, along with your pharmacy’s name and the name and email address of the staff member(s) to be given web editor and/or comment administrator rights.
  • Any email address can be used to register; this doesn’t need to be an NHS Mail address. The activation of the account can take up to two weeks and you will receive an email confirmation.

If you didn’t receive the letter or have lost it, contact the NHS Choices helpdesk. They will be able to register you without the unique reference number provided in the letter but it will be a longer process as they need to verify your identity.

Once you have the log in and the rights to edit visit Log in in the top right hand corner and then select the pharmacy for which you have the editing rights

Multiples will have co-ordinated registration at Head Office level so check with them first as NHS Choices will probably deal directly with the relevant Head Offices rather than individual branches.

Remember! Pharmacy opening hours cannot be amended without giving at least 90 days- notice (if the hours being changed are supplementary hours this is an inform only). NB: where applying to the NHS England Area Team for changes to core hours, which must be approved, and cannot be changed until 90 days after the application, and not earlier than 30 days after the date the application was granted by the NHS England Area Team. Requests should be sent to Pharmacy Team, West Midlands NHSE, St Chad’s, 2nd floor East, 213 Hagley Road, Birmingham, B16 9RG.

  1. NHS Mail – you must have an NHS Mail address, inform NHSE that you have one and demonstrate that you are accessing it regularly. We understand that further guidance will come out from PSNC about this as there may be a national mechanism to set all pharmacies up with new NHS Mail accounts. We request that once set up your email has been set up and you are accessing it regularly (at least once a day) that you email both NHSE and the LPC to test that it is working correctly. Current guidance on how to set up NHS Mail can be found at including access to the application form.

Fill in the application form. Once complete, email the form to your regional NHS mail contact.

For Coventry, Warwickshire and Worcestershire you may be able to directly email the service desk without completing the application form so check first: For Herefordshire, you may need to complete the application form first so check with your local team: .

For Birmingham, Solihull and Black Country your local team is:

Once you have activated your account and logged in you will find a welcome email with everything you need to know. You can set up a shared account for your pharmacy. The email address will always end @nhs.net but you can specify the part of the email address before the @ sign.

NB: Before you are registered for NHS mail you will need to have completed the IG Toolkit. http://www.igt.hscic.gov.uk

  1. Advanced Services – You must be performing at least 1 of the 5 current advanced services
  • Medicines Use review (MUR)
  • New Medicine Service (NMS) (to be able to offer this service you must be MUR accredited)
  • Appliance Use Review (AUR)
  • Stoma Customisation Service (SAC)
  • Flu Vaccination

If you have never delivered these Advanced Services before then you need to make sure that you complete required training and gain accreditation prior to providing the service. MUR and NMS links are here.

Details of the advanced services can be found at:

Note you are required to send copies of your accreditation certificates and completed Prem1 form / declaration forms to NHSE prior to undertaking the service. (). If you need any help get in touch, we will be arranging training sessions to help you get started with MURs and NMS and / or deliver more.

Also, note for those who intend to work towards HLP accreditation you must be delivering both MURs and NMS.

DATES FOR DIARIES – more sessions and more details to follow:

Arden, Herefordshire & Worcestershire – New Contract Support Sessions for Quality Criteria etc – Sunday 15th January 2017 (all day)

Herefordshire Healthy Living Pharmacy

  • Launch: Thursday 19th January (evening)
  • Leadership Training Day: Wednesday 1st February (all day)
  • Health Champion choice of two face to face training sessions: Wednesday 8th February & Thursday 21st February (daytime)

Worcestershire Healthy Living Pharmacy

  • Next Leadership Training Day: Thursday 2nd February (all day)
  • Health Champion face to face training session: tbc January or February

Getting in touch with the LPC:

Fiona Lowe Chief Officer on 07792970382 LPC email:

LPC website:

Fiona Lowe, Chief Officer LPC – 07792970382