Please follow the process below for any concerns or issues regarding the delivery of any Pharmacy Nationally Commissioned Services in Greater Manchester.

Issued by Diane Murphy - Programme Manager - NHS Greater Manchester

Can you ensure that all concerns /issues are sent to:  gmhscp.gmpharmacyservices@nhs.net with ‘Pharmacy First Issue’, stating which service it relates to in the subject field of the email.

We are receiving two types of emails listed below, each type will require different minimum information to enable us to respond or action:

1. A concern / issue with a specific individual pharmacy:

• GP Practice Name and Practice code
• If regarding a referral the date it was sent
• Pharmacy the referral was sent to
• Name & role of the person raising the issue
• Brief description of the issue
• Summary of any conversations which have taken place with the patient and/or the pharmacist or pharmacy team, with dates if appropriate
• Summary of any actions taken by the general practice team

2. A concern / issue more general not regarding a specific pharmacy – could be regarding pharmacy services, delivery over a PCN patch or locality, or a trend identified in a few pharmacies:

• GP Practice Name and Practice code
• Name & role of the person raising the issue
• Summary of the issues / concern (Trend, PCN area, common theme, Company)
• Summary of any conversations which have taken place regarding this issue/concerns and who this was with and when dates please
• Summary of any actions the general practice team have taken

When emails are received these will be reviewed at Services Working Group (SWG) which meet weekly, the membership of this group consists of Programme Team, CPGM, Pharmacy Commissioners (ICB) they will review all concerns / issues raised and take action as appropriate. Depending on the nature of the concern / issue, the general practice may or may not receive a response.

I can also advise you of the ongoing work the programme team and CPGM are doing to support the nationally commissioned advanced services.

We arranged face to face training for pharmacists to ensure they were ready and confident to provide the new seven clinical pathways introduced in February for the Pharmacy First service. We have provided numerous webinars to GP Practices which were very well attended, slides and recording were shared are available to downloadhttps://youtu.be/sh_veVIdpzc.

Several drop-in sessions were provided for community pharmacies to attend to ask any questions they had regarding services, and we have discussed arranging further supporting sessions for CP’s. We have developed supporting information for pharmacy teams and held a webinar to further support the Pharmacy First Service.

The programme team on a daily, weekly and monthly basis are reviewing all the data on PharmOutcomes to ensure referrals are actioned in accordance with the service specification, those outside the service delivery time will receive an email advising them of this. They may also receive a telephone call from the team as a reminder too.  

If a pattern persists with a particular pharmacy regularly having unactioned referrals this will be escalated to our more formal process, which has three steps and direct engagement with the CP to help resolve.

The team also produces monthly reports for all the CP services, based on the data we review and these are shared across GM ICB, we are also working towards getting the data visible on Tableau and will advise you when this is completed.

Should you have any question regarding this email please contactgmhscp.gmpharmacyservices@nhs.net    

Kind regardsDiane

Diane Murphy - Programme Manager

NHS Greater Manchester

Mobile: 07730 381991

Email: dianemurphy@nhs.net

Team email: gmhscp.gmpharmacyservices@nhs.net

Website:  www.gmintegratedcare.org.uk