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.

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e-learning

Emergency contraception


  • Released: 12/2012
  • Reviewed: 03/2025
  • Study time: 3h:0m

This programme will help pharmacy teams to identify who may need advice and support, how they can give that support and what is the best course of action. It includes information on emergency hormonal contraception, the copper-bearing and the intrauterine device.

It has been developed to support pharmacists to set up an emergency contraception (EC) service as an enhanced community service.

CPPE also has learning programmes on sexual health and contraception:

- Sexual health
- Contraception

Please note: The FSRH Guideline Emergency Contraception have agreed a recommendation that there is no need to avoid breastfeeding after taking a single dose of UPA-EC. See FSRH Statement: Ulipristal Acetate and Breastfeeding (Jan 2025) | FSRH for further detail. We will amend this programme to reflect this in our next scheduled update.

Learning outcomes

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

  • describe how you will provide emergency contraception in your pharmacy practice
  • apply current clinical guidance to determine when emergency contraception is needed
  • discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the different types of emergency contraception available
  • take appropriate action if you have concerns about safeguarding issues, including consent to have sex
  • conduct high-quality emergency contraception consultations, structured around the Calgary–Cambridge model
  • discuss information about the copper IUD (Cu-IUD), contraception, condoms and chlamydia in your emergency contraception consultations.

How to use this programme

You can access this e-learning programme using a web browser on any device. You will need to be connected to the internet while you work through it.

Learning intended for

  • Pharmacists
  • Pharmacy technicians
  • Trainee pharmacists
  • CPPE registrants