Community Pharmacy Standard
Community pharmacies are offering an increased range of services to support and care for people in the community. It is essential that they are able to record and share vital information about a person’s care with GP practices and other services.
By doing this digitally using standards, we can ensure that care professionals and citizens have timely access to relevant information, leading to better, safer and more personalised care in the community.
Current release
The standard | |
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Full standard – PRSB viewer | Open the online viewer |
Full standard – Excel | Download file (xlsx) |
Full standard – Json |  |
Supporting documentation | Description/purpose |
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Information standards notice (ISN) | ISNs are published to announce new or changes to information standards published under section 250 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012. |
Implementation guidance | This implementation guidance explains the structure of PRSB standards and includes the matrices showing which sections and elements are required for specific pharmacy services and messages to the GP. Detailed guidance, specific to the sections and elements of the standard, are included within the information model. |
Business rules | Rules for implementation of the standard. |
| Describes the purpose, methodolgy and stakeholder engagement for developing the standard, along with the findings and recommendations for further work. |
Safety case | Summarises the hazards which could result from implementing the standard. |
Hazard log | Details the potential hazards from implementing the standard with their risk rating and mitigation. |
Provenance data | Defines the information on who made a record entry and who carried out the activity, where and when. |
Need implementation support?
- Online support form
- Support@theprsb.org
- 020 4551 5225 (9-5 Mon-Fri, excl. bank holidays)
About this standard
The standard defines the information that should be recorded in the community pharmacy and sent to the person’s GP and for all the services covered by the English Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework.
The benefits:
- Improved communication methods support community pharmacy to take on a greater range of clinical services to reduce burden on other parts of the health and care system and ensures that the clinical contribution of community pharmacists is visible to the wider NHS.
- Timely sharing of clinically relevant data in relation to pharmacy services undertaken to other NHS providers
- Transfer of standardised coded data sets to patients’ primary care health record.
- A more comprehensive patient health record with the inclusion of clinically relevant outcomes from pharmacy services, which has the potential to improve medication safety and support medicines optimisation.
- Reduced risk of errors and administrative burden due to elimination of paper templates and transfer of information through non-direct routes into patients’ primary care health record.
Scope
The standard supports the English Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (2019-2024). Some aspects of it could be relevant for other UK nations. It is for all ages including children
It covers the following services:
- New medicine service
- Appliance use review
- Vaccine administration
- Community pharmacy consultation service (CPCS)
- CPCS emergency supply of medications
- CPCS minor illness
- Smoking cessation
- Blood pressure check
- Contraception
- Hepatitis C
- Discharge Medicines Service
How it works
The standard defines the information which should be recorded in the community pharmacy across all the services listed above. Some data items are shown as mandatory, these are kept to a minimum and this information must be recorded in the pharmacy.
Many items in the standard are shown as required, and this information should be recorded when its available and relevant to the individual consultation. These items do not always need to be recorded as some are only relevant to specific services.
There are also some optional data items. After contact with the person, information should be sent to the their GP. The implementation guidance document contains tables which show the information that should be sent to the GP for each of the services.
Examples
To give a clearer idea of how the standard works in practice, PRSB have created some scenario examples.
Further resources
- Implementation support
Details of the technical messaging specifications for the following services; Urgent supply of medicines as part of the Community Pharmacist Consultation Service (CPCS), and pharmacy administered flu vaccinations, are available here: Pharmacy: improving digital messaging and the Future Enterprise Architecture – NHS Digital. NHS England are working with their architecture team on how the messages to the person’s GP will be transferred and for the other Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (CPCF) services. In the meantime they should be sent by email.
- Standards explained
PRSB’s guide to standards which sets out the purpose and benefits of using standards and how to support frontline professionals to adopt them.
- IHRIM record correction guidance
Despite vigilance when filing information in records, mistakes can occur. The Institute of Health Records and Information Management has guidance to support professionals in making corrections following errors.
Endorsement
- Association of Independent Multiples Pharmacies
- The Company Chemists’ Association
- Faculty of Public Health
- National Pharmacy Association
- Community Pharmacy England (formerly the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee)
- Royal College of General Practitioners
- Royal Pharmaceutical Society
- United Kingdom Clinical Pharmacy Association