Minor ailments

Transcript

Every year, millions of patients visit their GP with minor health problems that the local pharmacist could resolve. It's estimated 50 million visits to the GP are made every year for minor ailments such as coughs and colds, mild eczema and athlete's foot. Local pharmacies are ideally placed in the community to give advice and suggest treatment options.

Minor ailment services are commissioned locally and there is no national service at present in England. There are a variety of conditions and eligibility criteria that are covered by this service and these can vary from area to area.

On this page you’ll find a variety of resources to help you understand the minor ailments service. There are workshops to attend if you prefer face-to-face learning or a number of e-courses to undertake if you want to learn on the go. You can learn with your team at theLearningPharmacy.com, work on your consultation skills or look up the latest NICE guidelines on this service.

The aim of this learning programme is to support pharmacists to develop the knowledge, skills and confidence needed to undertake effective consultations, communications and clinical assessments in order to provide the NHS Pharmacy First service.

If you have previously attended a DMIRS event, an NHS CPCS full study day or an NHS CPCS online workshop then you do not need to attend the NHS Pharmacy First service online workshop. The learning in these workshops is the same.

Learning Outcomes:

On completion of all aspects of this programme you should be able to:

• describe the clinical history taking process
• apply tools and techniques to demonstrate a structured person-centred approach to clinical history taking
• apply evidence-based practice and relevant guidance to support clinical reasoning and engage the person in shared decision making, such as NICE Clinical Knowledge Summaries
• identify presenting red flags in the consultation to enable safe, effective, ‘warm’ clinical transfer of the individual
• demonstrate a safe and effective closure to the consultation including safety netting, signposting and referral when necessary
• complete an accurate and concise clinical record to support data sharing across healthcare settings and transfer of care.
• describe a range of clinical examination skills
• interpret and apply clinical assessment test results and findings to aid clinical diagnosis and decisions
• practise a person-centred approach to the care of individuals by promoting self-care and prevention measures in the consultation.

This programme was developed by NHS Education for Scotland to help to update your knowledge and skills on the common clinical conditions and minor ailments that may present themselves in community pharmacy. It contains practical tips and advice on how to identify, recognise and manage a wide range of common conditions.

This version of the programme has been adapted by the Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE) for use in England.

Learning Outcomes:

On completion of all aspects of this learning programme you should be able to:

• recognise common clinical conditions
• describe the clinical management of common clinical conditions
• recognise red flags and points for immediate referral
• describe the key components of self-management strategies.

This programme offers you the tools for taking a person-centred dermatological clinical history and recognising the typical signs and symptoms of several common skin conditions. It will also help you, in a community setting, to support people with common skin conditions to self-manage their symptoms. 

Learning Outcomes:

On completion of all aspects of this learning programme you should be able to:

• describe the fundamentals of effective skin care
• develop a dermatological clinical-history-taking help sheet to use in practice
• describe and recognise the typical signs and symptoms of common skin conditions 
• recognise some of the red flag symptoms associated with common skin conditions and make appropriate recommendations for referral
• discuss current treatment options for common skin conditions
• create your own toolkit of resources and self-care measures to share with people to help them to self-manage their skin condition
• demonstrate effective shared decision making and person-centred care during a dermatological consultation.

Excellent communication and consultation skills are a key part of providing safe and effective services. CPPE has developed this set of cards to help all pharmacy staff improve their skills. All members of the pharmacy team should find this resource useful for improving their communication and consultation skills. The cards can be used by individuals, or as a tool to facilitate a training session.

Learning Outcomes:

On completion of all aspects of this learning programme you should be able to:

• describe what person-centred care means
• be more confident when communicating with the people who come into your pharmacy
• recognise good communication and consultation skills, compared with those that need improvement
• explain how facial expressions and body language can improve communication and help to build a rapport
• apply good listening skills
• know how to close a consultation effectively and safely
• discuss some of the challenges and barriers to good communication in community pharmacy.

This hub page contains links to tools and publications that LPCs may find useful when trying to spot opportunities for the commissioning and development of new community pharmacy services.

This webpage provides information on the Pharmacy First service, which commenced on 31st January 2024.

This one-stop resource hub has been compiled to support community pharmacy teams to manage minor illnesses, and identify any red flag symptoms.

This page will bring together all the PrescQIPP self care resources and campaign materials as well as showcase good practice examples of projects in self care and signpost to self care resources.