Empowering you to meet regulatory and best practice requirements

Reminder: Personal Columbus accounts

It is important to ensure that there is a team member available every working day who can set up Columbus accounts. All pharmacy team members, including locum and relief team members, should have an individual log in for every store that they work in, and these log in details must never be shared with anyone else. Any queues, such as the Clinical Assessment queue, that are actioned using your Columbus account will record your details against any approvals made - you should ensure that you are always logged into your personal Columbus account. 

Reminder: Accurately bagging up a dispensed item(s)

Recent incident analysis has shown that some incidents are caused by printing or reprinting bag labels and applying them in haste. SOPs DIS3 and DIS4 contain the step to initial the bag label, as this creates an audit trail of the bag label being checked - this step is intended as a pause in the process to consider the accuracy of the name and address on the bag label(s) against the prescription(s). It is important to complete this step in full; you may wish to consider your and your team member’s compliance with this process as part of your Patient Safety Review.

New BootsLive ‘Safety Through Innovation’ page

Please visit the new BootsLive page to view helpful content that has been created to help support dispensing practice when using innovation technology. This can be accessed here.

From April 2025, chickenpox (varicella) is classified as a ‘notifiable disease’. Registered medical practitioners must report an incidence of a notifiable disease to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA, previously Public Health England). If a customer presents in your store asking for advice relating to chickenpox, please ensure they are aware that they should inform their GP if they think they (or a family member or friend) have chickenpox. 

When recording details in relation to a patient, e.g. when adding a note on their Patient Medication Record (PMR), it is important to ensure that the record is clear, factual, professional in tone and contemporaneous. Please be mindful that any records may be requested by the patient or by external bodies. For further information, please refer to SOP RP6 and SOP AD4. 

It has come to the attention of the Independent Medical Agency (IMA) that some websites are directing individuals to travel clinics to obtain doxycycline for use as post-exposure prophylaxis (Doxy-PEP) to prevent sexually transmitted infections (STIs). When used for this purpose, doxycycline is taken as a single dose of 200mg within 72 hours after oral, vaginal, or anal sex, and is not currently available on the NHS.

If you become aware that a customer is using the Boots Travel Vaccinations & Health Advice Service to seek doxycycline for use as Doxy-PEP, please remind the customer that travel consultations are intended solely for travel-related health matters. If you need any support with a consultation or have any queries, please contact the Pharmacy Helpdesk.