Thursday 26th February 2026

Welcome to your weekly injection of local and national pharmacy news. As always, if you have any feedback or comments, please contact us by email at admin@cpdevon.org.uk.

Community Pharmacy Devon is asking you to undertaking a six week data collection exercise starting March 1st and finishing 20th April  this is to help inform future commissioning decisions. The aim is to better understand patient needs, service demand, and the activity currently being delivered across community pharmacies.

The information gathered will support evidence based planning, strengthen business cases for future services, and ensure that commissioning decisions reflect the realities of patient care in community pharmacy.

What Pharmacies Need to Do

• Collect data from eligible patients over the six week period.
• Ensure each patient is only captured once to avoid duplication.
• Record information accurately and submit it according on Pharmoutcomes.
• Submit findings by 30th April.

Incentive Payment

Participating pharmacies will receive a £75 payment upon successful completion and submission of the full 6-week dataset.

How the Data Will Be Used

The data will be analysed to identify trends, gaps, and opportunities for service improvement. It will be used solely for commissioning and service development purposes.

Thank You

Thank you for your support in this important piece of work. Community pharmacy insights are vital for shaping services that meet local population needs, and your participation directly contributes to stronger commissioning decisions for the future.

You can download the patient data collection form here. If you have any questions in regards to this data collection activity, please feel free to contact Admin@cpdevon.org.uk

Community Pharmacy England has published a new briefing on the Urgent Supply of Medicines and Appliances strand of the Pharmacy First service.

This guide provides information on undertaking patient consultations, handling requests for medicines liable to abuse, and record-keeping requirements to ensure your pharmacy remains fully compliant. Read the briefing here.

Join the NHS BSA for an Overview of NHS Prescription Services where they will fully explain what happens to your prescriptions once they have left you and how accounts are received and prepared for the scanning process. They will then explain prescription processing and include some important hints and tips on endorsing, fee claiming, wrong group movements and referred backs.

This is also a great opportunity for you to ask any questions you may have to the Head of Pharmaceutical Services and Business Engagement Lead who will be hosting:

Mark Gibbon

Mark’s role of the Business Engagement Lead allows him to support and educate stakeholders and customers. He regularly hosts and presents at events to pass on his vast experience supplying valuable advice and also promotes the valuable work completed by NHS Prescription Services and the wider NHSBSA.

Phil Edwards

Phil joined the NHSBSA in 2016 as the Head of Pharmaceutical Services and Principal Pharmacist. Before joining NHSBSA he has a varied background in pharmacy, retail pharmacy and pharmacy management as he worked for many years at the front line of Primary Care. He now manages the Pharmacy Team and supports colleagues at all levels to build on the excellent service relationship NHSBSA have with clients and dispensing contractors.

He is accountable for the relationship the organisation has with DHSC, NHS England, CPE, DDA, LPC’s and other Stakeholders on behalf of the NHSBSA.

Register here.

Within the community pharmacy contract in England, the annual patient safety report should be compiled and finalised after the end of the NHS year (which runs April to March)

Key requirements and timing for the report include:

• Retrospective Review: It should be completed retrospectively based on incident logs, near-misses, and national alerts from the past year.
• Data Collection: Although the report is annual, it is advisable to use monthly templates to collect data, which makes producing the final annual report easier.
• Retention: The report does not usually need to be sent to NHS England, but it must be kept on the premises as evidence for two NHS years for post-payment verification.

To support NHS are running an LFPSE Webinar – 26 February 2026: 6pm

Our third webinar on LFPSE (run by our colleagues in the Quality Team at NHS England) is taking place on Thursday 26th February 2026 at 6pm.

As LFPSE is now part of the pharmacy regulations this is a great opportunity to learn how and when to use it. This webinar is open to all pharmacy staff and there is no need to register for this event, please just join here. If you haven’t used Microsoft Teams before it may be worth downloading the app in advance.

If we are unable to answer any questions during the webinar, we will follow up after the event.

If you do experience any problems joining the webinar, please email england.pharmacysouthwest@nhs.net

We wanted to make you aware of a weekly bulletin published by the NHS providing resources on health policy and practice and details on key events and training sessions at a national level. If you would like to sign up to receive the bulletin, you can do so here.

If you have a positive news story to share with us please send it to admin@cpdevon.org.uk and it will be featured in an upcoming edition of the review. If featured, you will also win a surprise gift for you and your team up to the value of £25!

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