NHS priorities

Whether it’s to prepare for the next Pharmacy Quality Scheme deadline, or to increase your confidence in helping people with a learning disability, this section provides topic-specific pages that link to current NHS priorities. This section will support you in keeping your knowledge and skills up to date in order to provide high-quality pharmacy services and be service-ready.

Clinical pharmacy

Our clinical portfolio is expanding on a frequent basis, helping you to advance your knowledge and skills and deliver medicines optimisation in practice for all sectors of pharmacy. From two new focal points a year to our small group learning for hospital pharmacists – Optimise – this section focuses on clinical pharmacy, diseases and therapeutics.

Public health

The public health agenda is embedded in pharmacy, yet topics such as emergency contraception or stop smoking support are as prevalent as ever. As well as our public health workshops, use this section to access a wide range of resources to assure and maintain your competence, all underpinned by the Declaration of Competence system.

COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccination learning and resource hub

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented new challenges for the pharmacy profession. You might be supporting or preparing to support the COVID-19 vaccination programme, which may involve safe storage and distribution and/or administration of the vaccine. In order to access learning to support you to do this, click on the first tab displayed below. This section will be updated regularly as more information becomes available.

Responding to COVID-19 is a quickly evolving situation, which requires a rapid response from the pharmacy sector to mobilise the workforce and support patient care in those places where it is needed most. You may be a pharmacy professional returning after a break in practice, you may be working in a new environment, or your role may have changed in response to the pandemic. At this challenging time we want you to be able to find the resources that you need the most as quickly and easily as possible.

This learning and resource hub contains CPPE materials and resources from other organisations that we think will be most valuable to you.

We have drawn together the resources that we think would be most useful for each of the following situations. Click on the drop-down menu bars for more information.

 

COVID-19 vaccination – support for you

Pharmacists are playing an integral role in terms of delivering the COVID-19 vaccination programme. You may be working in any sector of practice; this area will support you in identifying appropriate resources to provide COVID-19 vaccination.

COVID-19 Vaccination e-learning programme

Whichever area of practice you are in, this is your main learning resource. e-Learning for Healthcare (e-LfH) have prepared a COVID-19 Vaccination e-learning programme. It is designed to provide the health and care workforce involved in the national COVID-19 vaccination programme with the knowledge they need to confidently promote high uptake of the vaccine and deliver the vaccine programme safely and effectively.

The programme refers to COVID-19: the green book, chapter 14a throughout. This is a key resource which you should use alongside this e-learning.

Further details about this programme and additional training requirements can be found on the e-LfH COVID-19 Vaccination programme webpage.

Programme access

There are two ways to access the COVID-19 Vaccination e-learning programme:

Access directly via e-LfH (NHS email address required)

Access directly via the e-LfH website by clicking here

Click ‘Log in’ on the top right-hand corner of the screen.

Access via the CPPE website (NHS email address NOT required)

Sign in to the CPPE website and access the e-Learning for Healthcare learning modules e-learning.

When you are logged in to the e-learning for healthcare site you can either:

  • Access directly by clicking here and click 'Enrol' on the top right-hand corner, or
  • Search “COVID-19 Vaccination” in the search bar at the top of the screen and select the COVID-19 Vaccination programme

Patient safety

The above e-learning is theoretical, and you will need to ensure that you are competent in the practical skills required for vaccination administration. You will also need to ensure that you have completed Basic Life Support and anaphylaxis training and any Statutory and Mandatory training required by your employer. Please see the additional training section below for information on the additional training that is available from e-LfH.

Additional training from e-LfH

If you have further learning needs, you may be required to undertake learning in addition to the e-LfH COVID-19 Vaccination e-learning programme.

Important: COVID-19 vaccinators should check with their local provider/employer whether they need to undertake the additional training.

Additional training is available from e-LfH and is listed on the e-LfH COVID-19 Vaccination programme webpage under Additional training for vaccinators. It covers:

  • Immunisation – Legal Aspects
  • Immunisation – Vaccine Storage
  • Immunisation – Vaccine Administration
  • Introduction to Anaphylaxis
  • Recognising and Managing Anaphylaxis
  • Statutory and Mandatory Training (SMT)

Further resources

The e-LfH COVID-19 Vaccination programme webpage also contains resources to support COVID-19 vaccinators and volunteers with patients conversations including:

  • a guide explaining how vaccines work and answering some common questions
  • vaccine hesitancy FAQs
  • a useful resource for healthcare professionals to use with patients to promote vaccine uptake
  • a video aimed at encouraging people to continue to follow national guidelines once they have received their vaccination
  • additional resources, including a second dose poster and guidance for staff managing challenging behaviours in vaccination sites

Professional information and support can be found on the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) COVID-19 vaccines page. Some resources that you may find particularly useful are:

  • The RPS statement of confidence in the COVID-19 vaccine approval process
  • A collection of Resources for the public
  • Videos from experts describing the action of each of the approved vaccines
  • Further pharmacy-specific links and resources, including information to help you deal with vaccine hesitancy and a guide to supporting people with long covid

The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) COVID-19 vaccination programme page which offers tailored support if you are in one of the following positions:

  • I am delivering COVID-19 vaccinations as an individual pharmacy professional
  • My pharmacy is delivering COVID-19 vaccinations ‘at’ or ‘from’ a registered pharmacy
  • I’m looking for FAQs and links to resources about the COVID-19 vaccination programmes

The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) COVID-19 vaccinations page offers information on how community pharmacy can support the COVID-19 vaccination programme including:

  • Practical information about how pharmacy can get involved with the programme
  • Vaccination of pharmacy staff
  • Vaccination requirements when working or deployed in care homes

The NHS England and NHS Improvement COVID-19 vaccination programme website offers additional resources you may find useful including:

  • List of vaccination centres
  • Links to vaccination information from other organisations
  • Primary care guidance
  • Reducing health inequalities in vaccine uptake

Looking for the latest COVID-19 resources

Our COVID-19 learning gateway includes links to the key NHS and Public Health England web pages that will help you keep up to date with the current situation. You will find these in the Core and foundation learning section along with links to the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's Coronavirus (COVID-19) hub and Health Education England's Coronavirus (COVID-19) e-learning programme which includes resources for pharmacy staff. In this section you can also access our Remote consultation skills e-learning programme which can support you to apply your existing consultation skills when undertaking consultations via video and over the phone. The Advanced learning section contains more specific clinical guidance and information on medicines. The tools and further reading will support you to respond to the pandemic and offer the best care to patients and the public, regardless of the sector you are working in. Here you can access information about coronavirus treatment options such as antivirals and neutralising monoclonal antibodies (nMABs) for non-hospitalised patients with COVID-19. You will also find a link to an e-learning module from the Royal College of General Practitioners introducing the impact of post-COVID-19 syndrome on patients and how to manage their symptoms and expectations in primary care.

Upskilling to look after those who are acutely unwell

If you are already working in secondary care and are looking for materials to help you upskill, then we recommend the Health Education England e-Learning for Healthcare (e-LfH) Coronavirus (COVID-19) portal. In the Resources for pharmacy staff area there is a learning path titled, Looking after acutely unwell patients.

(To access these resources, visit the Coronavirus (COVID-19) portal and select Pharmacy staff in the Resources by role section of the page. Then select the Resources for pharmacy staff in the list of links.)

In this learning path you will find Looking after acutely unwell patients which contains different resources to support you with your hospital pharmacy practice, ranging from programmes to support you in processes like medicines reconciliation to clinical programmes revising biochemistry and therapeutic drug monitoring. This pathway is updated with new resources regularly.

We have also developed a COVID-19 learning gateway where we have collated a range of advanced learning and tools which you may find useful. This is signposted to in the Looking for the latest COVID-19 resources area above.

A key part of your ability to support in these acute areas is your own health and wellbeing. Our Supporting you page contains a collection of resources which may help you at this difficult time.

Upskilling to look after those who are critically unwell

You may already be working in secondary care but moving into an environment which requires you to care for people who are critically unwell.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) and the UK Clinical Pharmacy Association (UKCPA) have several resources that you may find useful, these can be found on the RPS Upskilling during COVID-19 page and include a Critical Care Training Resource.

A key part of your ability to support in critical care areas is your own health and wellbeing. Our Supporting you page contains a collection of resources which may help you at this difficult time.

Seeking support and resilience

This is a challenging time for everyone. Our Supporting you page contains a collection of resources which may help you at this difficult time.

Working in primary care and care homes

We have developed a COVID-19 learning gateway where we have collated a range of learning and tools which you may find useful.  

Our clinical fact sheets developed for the Primary care pharmacy education pathway are now available here.

If you are looking for materials specific to primary care, we have also compiled a list of COVID-19: Additional resources for primary care with a range of extra resources. This should be used alongside the COVID-19 learning gateway.

This resource is for those who may find themselves working outside of their usual role in primary care.