New pre-visit questionnaires for contractors
Revision of the Community
Pharmacy Assurance Framework for England has led to the introduction of a questionnaire that should be completed by pharmacy contractors before they are visited by primary care trust inspection teams.
NHS Primary Care Contracting says that experience has shown that pre-visit
questionnaires allow inspection teams to concentrate on priority areas
and reduce the time spent in pharmacies. It adds that aligning the questionnaire
with inspection visits and the contract workbook produced by the Pharmaceutical
Services Negotiating Committee minimises duplication and helps to ensure
that all the requirements of the pharmacy contract are met.
The revised framework now maps the Department of Health’s standards
for better health against each of the requirements of the pharmacy contract.
In addition, the clinical effectiveness programme elements of clinical
governance — an essential service of the pharmacy contract — have
been expanded. In this regard, NHS PCC wants to hear about approaches
taken to demonstrating clinical effectiveness by both contractors and
PCTs.
The revised framework also includes a template that can be used by PCTs
to monitor pharmacies that open under the control-of-entry test exemptions
for 100-hour and internet pharmacies. NHS PCC says that internet pharmacies
may pose PCTs with a unique monitoring challenge. It adds that it would
like to hear from PCTs that have developed models for good practice in
this area.
Even after this revision, the monitoring framework is not set in stone
and comments and suggestions that can be used to refine further it year-on-year
have been invited.
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