Empowering you to meet regulatory and best practice requirements

This month, Patient Safety Champions are being encouraged to reflect on how they can use the Monthly Patient Safety Review (MPSR) to share patient safety insights with the pharmacy team and how they can work with the team to generate SMART-ER actions to develop patient safety in the pharmacy. Consider how you could maximise your involvement with the MPSR and share any ideas you may have with your Champion.​

With the launch of the Boots Winter Flu Jab service this month, please ensure that you have undertaken the relevant training and are confident to perform your role in the service, that you are aware of the relevant support documents and can direct any team members who are new to your pharmacy to the location of these documents.

This year, Flu ‘FVCs’/'PUPS’ are being renamed Supplementary Treatment and Consultation sites (STACs). We will provide our standard flu service using existing consultation rooms and will also deliver flu vaccination clinics from a number of designated STAC and Second Consultation Room (SCR) sites. The STAC/SCR sites will operate during the peak weeks of the flu season when it is expected that demand will be high. They will provide greater availability of flu vaccination service appointments for both NHS and private customers, helping to support the NHS and the company’s ambition for vaccine uptake.

If you are a healthcare professional and are scheduled to work in a STAC/SCR site, you must complete the additional flu training for STAC/SCR sites (available on the BootsLive Winter Flu Hub) and complete the ‘Boots Winter Flu Jab Service STAC/SCR site Healthcare Professional Authorisation 2023/24’ on Boots Learning. There is also training for dispensary team members and for Customer Assistants supporting the flu service in STAC/SCR sites; training documents that must be completed for each role are listed within the Boots Winter Flu Jab Service Training Matrix (available on the BootsLive Winter Flu Hub). 

Professional guidance relating to the NHS England Community Pharmacy Flu Vaccination Service 2023/24 has been published on the BootsLive Winter Flu Hub. This guidance has been developed to help with the identification and understanding of the key differences between this year’s NHS England PGD and the Boots private PGD. Healthcare professionals who will be providing the service should read and understand this guidance and the wording of the NHS PGD itself.

Supplied with this month’s edition of The Professional Standard is a Pharmacy Helpdesk lanyard. This should be attached to the Controlled Drug (CD) cabinet key(s) (remember: the CD cabinet key(s) must be in the personal possession of a pharmacist at all times, apart from when in use by an authorised dispensary team member; the pharmacist should establish the need for the key(s) before passing them to the team member and ensure that they are returned promptly). Pharmacists are responsible for the safe custody of all CD items and the lanyard is designed to help carry the CD keys easily.  

A magnet has also been supplied, to be displayed on the pharmacy fridge or CD cabinet. This will enable dispensary team members, including relief team members/locums, to have a visual reminder of the support that is available from The Pharmacy Helpdesk and the ways in which the team can be contacted.

The Pharmacy Helpdesk is available for support with professional, legal and ethical matters and can be contacted via the One Number (0115 957 5555, selecting options 2, 3, 2) or via The Pharmacy Helpdesk group on Viva Engage (formerly known as Yammer). You can also contact The Pharmacy Helpdesk using their email address pharmacyhelpdesk@boots.co.uk for any non-urgent queries.

Further to the National Patient Safety Alert regarding potent synthetic opioids implicated in heroin overdoses and deaths issued in July 2023 (NatPSA/2023/009/OHID), please continue to ensure that your pharmacy has stock of naloxone for administration should a person present with signs of an opioid overdose. This is recommended whether or not your pharmacy has a naloxone service. Guidance on how to administer naloxone is covered in a module entitled ‘Boots Naloxone Service for Pharmacists’, which is available on Boots Learning.