RPS to offer free clinical consultation skills training to community pharmacists in England

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS), together with Health Education England (HEE) and the Royal College of GPs (RCGP), are offering free online continuing professional development workshops for community pharmacists across England.

The workshops are intended to help pharmacists support patients referred from NHS 111 to the NHS Community Pharmacist Consultation Service (CPCS).

The HEE-funded workshops will, the RPS said, help pharmacists improve their skills in patient-facing consultations, and in providing clinical assessments for a range of minor illnesses. They will be facilitated by pharmacists, and delivered by advanced clinical practitioners and GPs.

Paul Bennett, chief executive of the RPS, said that “developing community pharmacists to take a greater role in urgent care is part of our drive to ensure pharmacy is at the forefront of healthcare”.

“Our partnerships with HEE and the RCGP in delivering this work demonstrate the commitment from general practice and pharmacy to work together to improve care for patients,” he said.

Claire Anderson, chair of the RPS’s English Pharmacy Board, said the workshops are “a hugely exciting next step for the pharmacy workforce”.

“We really welcome this collaboration, which will benefit the skills of our expert, flexible network of community pharmacists and further strengthen the close working relationship between general practice and pharmacy.”

The workshops start in October 2020, and will run six days per week during evenings and weekends. Attendees will need to compete two workshops, held one week apart. Full details of how to register are available from the RPS website.