Get involved with IT

Published on: 26th January 2017 | Updated on: 27th February 2024

Community Pharmacy England works with the other national pharmacy bodies and NHS bodies to support pharmacy contractors to make the best use of current and future pharmacy technologies to maximise patient benefit. Contractors and their teams that want to help improve community pharmacy IT can engage in the following ways:

Events list (virtual and face-to-face)

Events which will include a focus on healthcare IT are listed further below. Community Pharmacy IT Group meets for its main meetings each quarter and papers and information is at the Community Pharmacy IT Group webpage.

Upcoming and recent events

(One-off and annual events are highlighted gold. Also see: Digitalhealth.net webinars/events), FutureNHS events (promoted to FutureNHS members), Kings Fund events and NHS Digital events, NHS Transformation Directorate  events.

Previous events include

To have an event added here or for a list of past events, please contact it@cpe.org.uk.

Consultation & pilot opportunities

Feedback / take part

Surveys 

Look-out for other  IT survey opportunities including those highlighted for those pharmacy team members that join Community Pharmacy Digital email Group (CPDG) or for those that are signed up to the Community Pharmacy England newsletter.

Consultations

Social media

Consider use of social media to discuss community pharmacy IT matters. Community Pharmacy England has a Guide to pharmacy social media use.

Training & devlopment

Learn more about pharmacy IT by viewing our information on pharmacy IT policies and structures, considering further digital training and exploring our IT hub page.

Connecting with and benefitting from patient records (8th December 2022)

During this webinar, delegates will be given an update on the work by the NHS and Community Pharmacy IT Group’s (CP ITG) work to support increasing community pharmacy access to records.

This event is a follow-up to the summer 2021 records event, to assess progress and support next steps as well as to explore differences between GP Connect and ShCR records. And to look for opportunities to progress best use of these.

Presenters will include NHS Digital GP Connect team, and the NHS England Shared Care Record (ShCR) team.

Increased records access for health and care staff, including pharmacy teams, was outlined as one of the priorities of the NHS Long Term Plan.

The event is being jointly hosted by NHS England’s Transformation Directorate and CP ITG. It will include sessions aimed at Local Pharmaceutical Committees (LPCs).

Date and time: Thursday 8th December, 9.30am-11.30am
Location: Online event (after your registration has been approved, you will be provided with the meeting detail including the Zoom meeting joining link)
Cost: There is no delegate fee for this event. However, if once registered you can no longer make the event, please email Gabriele Skieriute to let us know.
Guidance to support contractors and LPCs seeking access to records: Health records in pharmacy

Register for this event now: complete the form by clicking here.

New: ID checks for Smartcards digitised - feed back

NHS Digital are exploring launching a new service that could do away with the need for face-to-face identity checks for anyone needing a new smartcard. The new service could go one step beyond the existing Covid workaround [linked to COVID specific legislation] that involves a video call  (e.g. MS Teams). Whilst that may be more convenient and greener than the original process

The new system is hoped to maintain a high authentication level and have the added benefit of enabling staff to register themselves wherever and whenever is most convenient for them.

The new service may essentially involve two steps:

  1. Being sent a secure link to a webpage where basic details can be input; and
  2. Being sent a link to an app that could allow you to show documents and be photographed.

These represent the same document checks as the current standard service.

Applying using this new method could run in parallel with the existing registration service, since not everyone has a smartphone or is comfortable using one.

The new service would not be restricted to pharmacy, it would run out across the entire NHS. Given that anyone requiring access to patient records will have to go through this process there are huge savings to be made from streamlining it.

NHS Digital are performing discovery work and want to know of pharmacy team feedback.

Please contact it@cpe.org.uk if you can take part. You’ll be able to take part with a shot phone interview which will help to ensure NHS Digital are taking into account extra community pharmacy user input.

The discovery team would be interested to speak with a mixture of pharmacy team members including locums, regular staff and head office staff.

New: Learning networks - feed back

NHS Transformation Directorate are exploring what an effective learning network to support digital services should look like for the Community Pharmacy sector.

Considerations

  1. What would a successful learning network look like for you?
  2. What gaps currently exist in sharing learning and best practice between different Pharmacy stakeholders?
  3. What are the disadvantages with learning networks?
  4. What sort of topics would you like to discuss in a network like this?
  5. What would make the learning network as engaging as possible for you?
  6. How can we ensure a learning network is sustainable?

If you would like to feed in about these please email it@cpe.org.uk. Community Pharmacy England may link you up with the project team.

Community Pharmacy England and CP ITG are also directly feeding into NHS Transformation Directorate.

New: Virtual Visits (for NHSmail users) - piloting

NHS Digital and Community Pharmacy England is inviting community pharmacy contractors to take part in research trialling the new NHSmail Virtual Visits appointment booking and remote consultation platform.

Pharmacy teams taking part in the pilot, will be able to use the Virtual Visits tool to experiment with booking and carrying out face to face and/or virtual patient consultations. The tool works in conjunction with NHSmail Microsoft Teams and the Microsoft Booking platform.

Prerequisites for community pharmacy team members taking part in the pilot are:

  • an active personal NHSmail account;
  • access to the pharmacy’s shared NHSmail inbox;
  • Microsoft Teams installed on a computer or tablet;
  • a computer or device with a webcam.

This research will help support the development of this tool, ensuring that it is as easy to use as possible for pharmacy teams. If you would like to get involved with this research, we recommend that you register your interest as soon as possible.

Please complete this short web form to register interest to pilot and use Virtual Visits. Your information will be shared with the project team so that you can be contacted if you are selected.

If you want to learn more before registering your interest, please email it@cpe.org.uk with ‘Virtual Visits pilot’ in the email subject title.

Read more: NHSmail and Pharmacy video conferencing.

Read more about: NHSmail and Pharmacy video conferencing.

 

 

 

 

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