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.

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.

This downloadable training supports pharmacy teams to improve their communication and consultation skills. It 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 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.

Find out about conditions, symptoms, medicines, tests and treatments, including what to do and when to get help.