It is nearly the end of the contractual year! Are you ready?
If you are a NHS Contractor we hope;
- You have finished your Community Pharmacy Patient Questionnaires (CPPQ) and have published the results for your patient to see. Ensure it is in a prominent position within your pharmacy or post it on your NHS Choices website and/or you own website. If you are a Distance Selling Pharmacy (DSP) ensure it is on your website. To keep good communications with you patients nationwide why not include a copy with the patients next prescription delivery.
As part of your results look to see what are your strong points and weak points, ensure you publish these? Have you indicated how you will look to improve the service levels in the areas of weakness. - You have completed your Information Governance toolkit. This has to be completed before the end of March. Once you have updated all the questions and assigned responsibility ensure you ‘publish the results. Otherwise it will appear you have not completed it. The CPPQ will be complete now. However, did you add any additional questions within your survey about IG? It is a useful tool to obtain feedback from patients about IG which can be used to support your IG toolkit score.
- You are ready to prepare an annual report regarding NHS complaints, ending 31 March, which must—specify the number of complaints which the pharmacy contractor received; specify the number of complaints which the pharmacy contractor decided were well-founded; specify the number of complaints which the pharmacy contractor has been informed have been referred to the Health Service Commissioner to consider under the 1993 Act; and summarise—
- the subject matter of complaints that the pharmacy contractor received;
- any matters of general importance arising out of those complaints, or the way in which the complaints were handled;
- any matters where action has been or is to be taken to improve services as a consequence of those complaints.
The annual report must be available to any person on request.
The pharmacy contractor must also send a copy of its annual report to the local NHS Team as soon as reasonably practicable after the end of the year to which the report relates.
Written by Michael Spruzs