Pharmacy Advice Audit: Please take part in 2022 audit
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Community pharmacy contractors and their teams are being asked to take part in PSNC’s latest Pharmacy Advice Audit in w/c 31st January 2022.
The audit will once again ask pharmacy teams to record information about the informal healthcare advice that they are giving over the course of a single day (or until a minimum number of consultations is reached), with the results providing a critical temperature check on how people are continuing to rely on community pharmacies.
This is the third Advice Audit that pharmacies have been asked to take part in, and the results will once again provide critical evidence for use in our funding discussions with HM Government and the NHS.
Last year’s Advice Audit highlighted the scale of the informal consultations that were taking place in pharmacies during the pandemic. The huge number of pharmacies taking part in the audit meant that we had compelling evidence for use in our negotiations, and the audit results were also critical in helping to persuade MPs to support our case for COVID-19 costs.
We would be very grateful to anyone able to take part in this year’s audit – the more pharmacies who are able to do so, the stronger our evidence is.
As with the two previous audits, pharmacies taking part will be asked to record data about patients coming into pharmacies seeking informal advice over the course of a single day (or until a minimum number of consultations has been reached).
Contractors will notice some minor changes to the audit template to help us begin to better understand the sorts of consultations that pharmacies are now giving.
The audit week will commence on Monday 31st January and as before, pharmacies will be asked to carry it out on a single day within that week.
We are very grateful to anyone able to take part in this audit.
Resources
The audit and its accompanying paperwork have been designed to be as straightforward for pharmacy teams as they can be. Full instructions on how to take part are outlined in the guidance below.
The briefing sheet sets out the criteria for inclusion, what needs to be recorded and how to reflect on your pharmacy’s results. It also answers some frequently asked questions as identified during testing with a small number of pharmacies.
The audit template provides a simple way to record the required data, making things smoother for data entry onto PharmOutcomes. Further information and resources will be uploaded to: cpe.org.uk/adviceaudit
PSNC Business Continuity Lead, Richard Brown, said:
“The Pharmacy Advice Audit is part of PSNC’s wider work to gather evidence of the efforts and value of community pharmacy teams across the country. The response rate to the previous two audits was phenomenal, and we are keen to match that again this year as it considerably strengthens our evidence when lots of pharmacies are able to take part.
We know that pharmacy teams are as busy as ever, so we have once again made the audit as easy as possible for contractors to complete; hopefully this is aided because there is also now some familiarity with the process. Data from our previous two audits was used to great effect by both the sector and its advocates in strengthening the financial case for community pharmacy, and we would be hugely grateful to any pharmacies who can take part and contribute to this important work once again this year.”
PSNC Director of Pharmacy Funding, Mike Dent, said:
“The previous Pharmacy Advice Audits have provided PSNC with important data to take into our negotiations, helping us to demonstrate just how much local communities rely on their pharmacies and the impact . Repeating the audit this year, at the same time of year as the 2021 audit was carried out, will provide us with more up-to-date information, as well as an important comparator.
This year, with negotiations on Year 4 of the CPCF due to begin shortly and PSNC making the case for an expansion of the CPCS to fairly fund pharmacies for the support they give to ‘walk-in’ patients, the audit data will be more critical than ever. Thank you in advance to all pharmacy teams who are able to take part, and we look forward to seeing and analysing the results of this audit.”
