Financial support for training and IM&T in Scotland
Pharmacy contractors in Scotland are to be given financial support to help them prepare for the new community pharmacy contract, due to be implemented in April 2006.
Financial support
was promised last year (PJ, 21 August 2004, p247) and
this week details
were published by the Scottish Executive Health Department.
Each contractor will receive £650 for training a member of staff
to NVQ level 2 from January 2004. A further £450 will be paid to
each contractor as a contribution towards upgrading computer systems.
This sum will be paid through the Practitioner Services Division in contractors’ March
payment. The training funding will be paid by NHS Education for Scotland
(NES) to contractors who show evidence that training costs have been
incurred. Claims have to be made by March 2006.
On new information management and technology (IM&T), this week’s
SEHD bulletin states that all community pharmacies in Scotland will be
connected to N3 by September 2005. This will enable pharmacists to use
software for the electronic transmission of prescriptions and patient
registration, both of which are essential to the new contract.
The bulletin states: “It will be a condition for holding a new
community pharmacy contract that contractors have an IM&T system
that meets stated hardware specifications and uses software as laid down/accredited
by SEHD/NHS Services Scotland and agreed with the Scottish Pharmaceutical
General Council to underpin the new contract.”
Contractors will also have to maintain the system in accordance with
agreed protocols, something that will be supported through the new global
sum.
Contractors have until September this year to upgrade their computer
systems as necessary. Health boards will monitor compliance after this
date. Exact specifications are given in the SEHD document and include
a dual-bin laser printer that can be configured to print on different
sizes of paper.
Altogether, £2m of implementation support has been promised. This
week’s announcement covers only part of this money; further announcements
are expected on support for premises development and use of supplementary
prescribing.
In addition, the SEHD published some clarifications
about the transitional arrangements for the new pharmacy contract this week. These are for essential
small pharmacies to have a one-off opportunity to change the category
in which they are paid, and for instalment dispensing fees to be included
in the total number of prescriptions considered in the “change
of circumstance” arrangements. Contractors will shortly be given
the total number of prescriptions for 1 December 2003 to 30 November
2004 which will be used to calculate remuneration this year (PJ, 18/25
December 2004, p875). |
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