(CPCS) Community Pharmacist Consultation Service
- 7 Clinical pathways – a new element of the service
- Urgent repeat medicine supply – previously within CPCS
- NHS referrals for minor illness – previously within CPCS
The following is now archived information on the CPCS service:
The NHS Community Pharmacist Consultation Service launched on 29th October 2019 as an Advanced Service.The service connects patients who have a minor illness or need an urgent supply of a medicine with a community pharmacy.The CPCS aims to relieve pressure on the wider NHS by connecting patients with community pharmacy, which should be their first port of call and can deliver a swift, convenient and effective service to meet their needs. Since the CPCS was launched, an average of 10,500 patients per week being referred for a consultation with a pharmacist following a call to NHS 111; these are patients who might otherwise have gone to see a GP
General practices can refer patients for a minor illness consultation via CPCS, once a local referral pathway has been agreed. As well as referrals from general practices, the service takes referrals to community pharmacy for minor illness or if a patient needs an urgent supply of a medicine from NHS 111 and NHS 111 online, Integrated Urgent Care Clinical Assessment Services and in some cases patients referred via the 999 service.
From 15th May 2023, 999 services or providers of urgent and emergency care who are authorised by NHS England to provide this (for example, Urgent Treatment or Urgent Care Centres, an Emergency Department or an Accident and Emergency Unit) can also make referrals to community pharmacy for minor illness or if a patient needs an urgent supply of a medicine.
The CPCS provides the opportunity for community pharmacy to play a bigger role than ever within the urgent care system.
Visit CPE for more info on the following:
- CPCS service specification
- CPCS Toolkit for pharmacy staff
- CPCS – when is it complete? v1 (July 2021)
- GP referral pathway
- Additional resources for pharmacy teams (including learning and development)
- Funding, claiming payment, statistics and post-payment verification
- IT requirements and support
- Resources for LPCs
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Pharmacy contractors can register to provide the service via the NHSBSA Manage Your Service (MYS) portal.
Free Training available to Humber pharmacies via Virtual Outcomes:
Access FREE CPCS & GP CPCS Pharmacy Training via Virtual Outcomes
Free training via the RPS:
To find out more and book your free place visit the Royal Pharmaceutical Society website.
Annex C (Key Contact Details) are available from NHS England and have been shared with all pharmacies to their NHS shared mailbox.
Please Note: If you are ever made aware that the details are out of date please email england.pharmacyreturns@nhs.net and they will look to update the documents and recirculate.
CPCS, Red Drugs and Prescibing Guidlines:
CPCS, Red drugs and Prescibing Guidlines
PharmOutcomes guides and training video:
We would recommend that all contractors as a minimum watch this 9 minute video, if you have already watched, it’s worth another watch as a refresher. Other CPCS training video’s are available here: https://media.pharmoutcomes.org/
As well as this video, there are also some handy user guides with screen shots of the platform, the video and guides are all available on the following website: https://pharmoutcomes.org/pharmoutcomes/help/home?cpcs, and can also be accessed below:
- PharmOutcomes User Guide – CPCS Introduction (updated 22 Oct 2019)
- PharmOutcomes User Guide – CPCS Urgent Supply (updated 1 Jun 2020)
- PharmOutcomes User Guide – CPCS Minor Illness
- PharmOutcomes User Guide – Claims
- PharmOutcomes User Guide – CPCS Frequently Asked Questions (updated 1 Jun 2020)
Click here to view the Humber LPC training slides
