Developing your career

This programme aims to develop the knowledge, clinical skills and behaviours of pharmacy technicians working in community pharmacy to increase patient access to clinical services by widening the skill mix in community pharmacy teams.

The programme is made up of the following main components:

• Four-month self-directed e-course comprised of six modules
• Learning needs assessment (LNA) at start of programme
• Initial meeting with an CPPE Education supervisor to discuss learning needs and form an action plan
• Approximately 4-6 hours of learning per week
• One face-to-face workshop on clinical assessment skills (CAS)
• Workplace practice of CAS
• Mandatory two-hour evening workshop for reflection in month four
• Optional monthly one-hour peer support sessions

Once you have identified your own personal learning needs by completing the self-assessment framework, the different topic areas in this programme will support you to:

1. Define your strengths and transferable skills to identify your learning needs and then create a personal development plan
2. Describe how changing legislation will influence and affect your ongoing practice
3. Apply the essential knowledge and skills required to deliver highly effective clinical services in community pharmacy.
4. Apply relevant clinical therapeutics to person-centred consultations, ensuring that shared decision making is prioritised
5. Demonstrate appropriate clinical assessment skills and apply them to your practice
6. Develop your skills as a reflective practitioner and apply these to your practice
7. Build a powerful personal and professional support network to support you during this programme and your ongoing practice
8. Create a record of learning and application (RLA) to show competencies and achievements from the learning undertaken.

Pharmacy technicians who currently work in community pharmacy and are looking to gain the skills to develop their roles in practice.

This programme launches on the 28th September.

You will need to apply via the application process and confirm that you:

• are a community pharmacy technician
• have access to a pharmacist or other health care professional in practice who is able to observe and sign off your clinical assessment skills in practice
• will provide the postcode of your place of work
• agree to attend one of the mandatory Clinical assessment skills face-to-face workshops and one online peer reflection workshop to guarantee your place and gain access to the e-course.

You need to attend both the CAS and peer reflection workshops to enrol on this pilot cohort of the Community pharmacy technician: advancing your role programme. You will choose the dates that work best for you.

More dates will be released in due course for further cohorts of this programme.

Dates and locations for the full-day Clinical assessment skills workshop this autumn are as follows:

• Wednesday 1st November – Milton Keynes
• Thursday 2nd November – Birmingham
• Tuesday 7th November – Newcastle upon Tyne
• Tuesday 14th November – Bristol
• Wednesday 15th November – Leeds
• Tuesday 6th February - Bristol
• Tuesday 6th February - Manchester
• Thursday 8th February - Birmingham
• Tuesday 20th February - Woking
• Tuesday 20th February - Newcastle
• Thursday 22nd February - Milton Keynes
• Monday 26th February - Leeds
• Tuesday 27th February - Exeter
• Wednesday 28th February - London
• Friday 1st March - Nottingham

The Clinical assessment skills workshops will run from 10.00am to 4.30pm.

Dates for the evening online peer reflection workshop are planned for:

• Monday 12th February 2024
• Tuesday 27th February 2024

The evening peer reflection workshop will run from 7.00pm to 9.00pm.

Optional online monthly peer support sessions will run for the duration of the programme. The planned dates for these sessions are:

• Tuesday 10th October 2023
• Wednesday 25th October 2023
• Tuesday 7th November 2023
• Wednesday 29thNovember 2023
• Thursday 11th January 2024
• Tuesday 23rd January 2024
• Thursday 8th February 2024
• Wednesday 28th February 2024

The monthly peer support session will be 12.30pm-1.30pm.

Alongside your learning needs analysis discussion, your CPPE education supervisor will confirm all the course requirements, including help to book onto workshops and how to navigate the training platform, in your initial meeting with them.

Once you have enrolled on the e-course, you will be assigned a CPPE education supervisor, who will contact you to arrange an online meeting of 40 minutes to discuss your learning needs.

You will have access to a tracker linked to your CPPE profile so you can see your progress through the course and update your progression as you go. You can enable the CPPE viewer to allow your employer to see your progress on the programme.

Apply here