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.

Transfer of care

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Keeping patients safe when they transfer between providers and making sure they are taking the right medicines is vital to their care and protection. Between 30 and 70 percent of patients have either an error or unintentional change to their medicines when their care is transferred? Pharmacy professionals can play a key role in the secure and accurate transfer of information about medicines between care providers to ensure patient safety.

Research has shown that when patients are admitted to hospital most are likely to have at least one omitted medicine or wrong dose and failures in communication at the time of discharge from secondary care can result in death or serious harm to patients as well as avoidable readmission.

Use the resources on this page to find out what a good transfer-of-care process for information about medicines should look like and the actions pharmacy professionals need to take to make this happen.

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Transfer of care: supporting patients moving into and out of hospital

This resource is not currently available to you, click for more information.

The aim of this programme is to enable pharmacy teams across all areas of practice to facilitate safe and effective transfer of care for patients when they move care setting.

It provides you with the tools and resources available to help you get the right processes in place to support patients effectively, particularly after discharge back into the community.


2h:00m (for events this includes pre and post event learning)


Learning Outcomes:

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

  • describe three reasons why transfer of care needs to improve and how pharmacy as a profession can help
  • outline the roles of pharmacy professionals in different settings with respect to transfer of care
  • describe what the pathway should look like for good transfer of care
  • identify processes and standard operating procedures (SOPs) required to implement a good transfer-of-care pathway
  • identify people, processes and services to support transfer of care in your locality
  • interpret hospital discharge summaries and use the information to optimise patients' benefit from medicines and minimise risk when they transfer back into the community
  • identify tools and resources to help you support transfer of care and patient outcomes
  • signpost patients to support services offered by pharmacies after discharge from hospital.
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NHS Discharge Medicines Service: improving outcomes for patients transferring care

This resource is not currently available to you, click for more information.

This programme aims to support community pharmacy professionals to deliver the NHS Discharge Medicines Service. It will enable pharmacy professionals in other settings to understand how their role links to the patient’s journey through this service.


2h:00m (for events this includes pre and post event learning)


Learning Outcomes:

On completion of all aspects of this learning programme you should be able to:
  • outline the context for the introduction of the NHS Discharge Medicines Service
  • summarise the stages of the NHS Discharge Medicines Service delivered by community pharmacy professionals and how you can support delivery in your own role
  • discuss the benefits of the NHS Discharge Medicines Service with patients
  • relate the NHS Discharge Medicines Service to the national principles of medicines optimisation
  • plan the steps you and your pharmacy team will need to take to deliver or support the service
  • support person-centred consultations with patients referred through the service, to improve their understanding of their medicines.
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The purpose of this programme is to support pharmacy professionals in delivery of medicines reconciliation as part of an integrated care system with a focus on safe transfer of care.


2h:15m (for events this includes pre and post event learning)


Learning Outcomes:

On completion of all aspects of this programme you should be able to:
  • describe how to complete a medicines reconciliation in accordance with national guidance
  • identify possible barriers and solutions to medicines reconciliation
  • explain why medicines reconciliation is important during transfer of care.
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The purpose of this programme is to support pharmacy professionals in delivery of medicines reconciliation as part of an integrated care system with a focus on safe transfer of care.


1h:00m (for events this includes pre and post event learning)


Learning Outcomes:

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

  • describe how to complete a medicines reconciliation in accordance with national guidance
  • identify possible barriers and solutions to medicines reconciliation
  • explain why medicines reconciliation is important during transfer of care.
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external resource

This bulletin focuses on medication issues that can occur when adult patients over the age of 12 years are transferred between different care settings. This includes transfer between home, care home (providing both residential and nursing care), hospital, private healthcare, prison and other secure settings.

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