Community Pharmacy Devon Weekly Dose 💊

Thursday 16th April 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.

Upcoming Training 🎓

Clinical Note Writing Event - 29th April, Teams

Providing pharmacy first services and want to make sure your consultation notes are up to the required standard to be included in a patient’s primary care health record? Want to develop your consultation skills to ensure you deliver structured pharmacy first interventions and get the history from patients you need? Then our upcoming Community Pharmacy Devon training evening is for you! Over the course of the evening we will ensure you have the tools to make high quality records of your pharmacy first consultation and discuss:

The clinical interview and consultation structures
Taking a comprehensive history
Documentation requirements
How to make excellent notes for addition to a patient’s medical record as part of pharmacy first

Book a place here.

Mental Health NMS Event - 20th May, 6.30pm-9.00pm, The Copthorne Hotel, Plymouth

Providing the New Medicines Service and want a clinical update (and fantastic CPD) for the new, expanded ‘depression’ arm of the service? Then look no further than our Mental Health NMS Update event in Plymouth on 20th May 2026. We will host an evening event covering contractual service updates, a whistle-stop mental health update (tailored to community pharmacy teams from a local secondary care mental health expert) and case discussion of real-world scenarios that could happen in your pharmacy. As always there will be hot food and all members of the pharmacy team are welcome to attend. Book a place here.

Spring Seasonal Vaccination Programme – Walk-in Finder

The COVID-19 spring seasonal vaccination programme started on Monday 13 April 2026. Walk-in COVID-19 vaccinations sessions are now for eligible adults aged 18 or over only. Walk-in COVID-19 vaccination services can now be confirmed in the NHS Profile Manager along with new clinics and opening times.

How to create a clinic for adults:

Sign into the NHS Profile Manager.
Review walk-in COVID-19 vaccination services, in the NHS website services list.
Create a walk-in COVID-19 vaccination clinic by entering and confirming a start date, end date and opening times.

❗Only a Few days Left to Collect Data for the Dermatology Data Collection Exercise

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 survey form here.

Community Pharmacy Technician Apprenticeship Programme Funding Offer

Pharmacy Southwest are pleased to announce the launch of the Community Pharmacy Technician Apprenticeship Programme (CPTAP) 2026.

This programme supports Pre-registration Trainee Pharmacy Technicians (PTPTs) to be employed and complete a two-year apprenticeship training programme within a community pharmacy setting. On successful completion of training and registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), pharmacy technicians will be well placed to support service delivery and wider healthcare priorities within community pharmacy.

Funding Offer

We are offering a financial training contribution of £15,505 per PTPT, per year for the two-year training period. This contribution supports sites in developing an employer-led, work-based training programme that meets GPhC initial education and training (IET) standards for pharmacy technicians and the NHS England Education Quality Framework (accessed via the National School of Healthcare Science website).

Next Steps

Application of Funding (AoF) requests must be submitted via the regional online application form. The application window will open on Monday 27 April 2026 at 9am, until Monday 18 May 2026, at midday.

National stakeholder engagement sessions will be held via MS Teams to provide initial information on the launch of the funding offer. Use the link below to register your attendance for your preferred date. You only need to attend one session.

Tuesday 21 April, 12pm to 12.30pm – Register here

Thursday 23 April, 8pm to 8.30pm – Register here

Regional stakeholder engagement sessions will take place from Monday 27 April, and will be held via MS Teams to provide further information on the programme, including the application process and how to access apprenticeship funding. Use the link below to register your attendance for your preferred date. You only need to attend one session.

Tuesday 5 May, 12:30pm to 1:30pm – Register here

Thursday 7 May, 7:30pm to 8:30pm – register here

Guidance to support completion of an application, along with further programme information, is available on their website.

Share and Learn

We have received a report that a patient was recently refused Emergency Contraception from a local pharmacy based on the following factors; she was on Mounjaro and was 5 weeks post termination of pregnancy.

Please be aware there is no reported interaction between Mounjaro and the Emergency Contraception and it can be given at any point in the cycle. Further, the sexual health teams always advise Emergency Contraception even if having an IUD fitted in case of failed fit or non-attendance.

If you are unsure you can always speak to another pharmacist within the network or the local sexual health clinic team who are on hand to support in any decision making and it is advised to always work in the best interest of the patient.

https://www.medicines.org.uk/emc#gref

https://bnf.nice.org.uk/

The sexual health team has also informed us that it is safe to re-start any method of oral contraception after a break, provided there are no medical contraindications. Oral contraception can be "quick started" if risk of pregnancy cannot be completely excluded, as long as the patient is advised to perform a pregnancy test 3 weeks after last sexual contact.