Empowering you to meet regulatory and best practice requirements

This month’s Patient Safety Champions’ letter focuses on the importance of following the handout and handover processes and the positive impact this has on patient safety. Your Patient Safety Champion will engage with you on how to best support the effective handout and handover of medication. Please share with your Patient Safety Champion any insights or ideas for any SMART-ER actions that you may have to support patient safety in your pharmacy. 

The Responsible Pharmacist Regulations 2008 state that the Responsible Pharmacist is accountable for the procedures ensuring the safe and effective storage, preparation, and delivery of medicines. It is therefore not appropriate to accept or store medicines (or any other parcels) not dispensed by Boots, on behalf of patients or healthcare providers, including from a known healthcare provider. The exception to this is if your store has a centrally-authorised agreement with a third party (such as Alcura). In addition, Boots stores can accept dispensed medication from Boots hospital pharmacies if they are a Nominated Boots Pharmacy (NBP) (as per SOP OD6). 

On 27 November 2024, legislation regarding the restrictions on the sale or supply of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) analogues was further renewed in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This will expire on 31 December 2024. Further information is available here.

If you are an Independent Prescriber (IP) and are:

• Currently prescribing under a NHS-commissioned service in your store, you can also 
  use your agreed scope of practice to provide support to patients that are not eligible 
  for the NHS service under the private Boots Prescribing Service. For more information 
  on how you can set up the private Boots Prescribing Service in your store, please refer to the ‘Boots Prescribing Service’ BootsLive page
• Not yet using your prescribing skills at Boots, we encourage you to complete the Boots Prescriber Governance Pathway to attain your prescribing rights at Boots. You can then set up the private Boots Prescribing Service and any available NHS-commissioned services that are within your scope of practice; please ask your Line Manager to nominate you by using the Pharmacy Services Nomination form. Please refer to the ‘Prescribing in Boots’ BootsLive page for further information

All pharmacy technicians should now have completed the second module of the programme. The third module will be available on an individual’s Boots Learning account from 6 January 2025, provided the second module has been fully completed. The third module explores communication and decision making within the leadership component and a focus on healthy skin in the common clinical conditions section. In addition, the Boots Macmillan Information Technician part of the module covers structuring conversations and key communication skills. Please reinforce your learning from modules 1 and 2, and if necessary, complete any remaining lessons during December.

Merck Sharp & Dohme (UK) Limited (MSD) recently issued a Direct Healthcare Professional Communication (DHCP) regarding a new formulation of Noxafil^® (posaconazole) (gastro-resistant powder and solvent for oral suspension) that has been approved for use in children 2 years and older. It is important to note that this product is not interchangeable with other posaconazole formulations currently on the market and it should be ensured that the appropriate formulation is supplied.