Pharmaceutical services workshops
Here is a flavour of the support that PCC can provide to you in relation to pharmaceutical services. All the workshops can be delivered virtually or face to face.
For virtual delivery we will break our full day workshops into three, two-hour sessions and we strongly recommend that delegates attend all three sessions to get the most benefit.
All our workshops will link back to the regulations and the pharmacy manual and, where available, appeal history and case law. We will use applications or cases that you are currently dealing with to relate the theory to the practice.
If there is a topic that you are interested in, but is not listed, then we can develop a bespoke session to meet your particular needs.
An introduction to pharmaceutical services
This half day workshop is ideal for those new to pharmaceutical services as provided by pharmacies, dispensing appliance contractors and dispensing doctors or those looking for a refresher. The session provides an overview of pharmaceutical services, in particular the inter-relationships between all the organisations that are involved in the commissioning and delivery of pharmaceutical services. It briefly touches on how new premises open, a topic that is looked at in much more detail in other events that we can provide, before spending some time on the services that pharmacy and dispensing appliance contractors must provide and those they may provide.
Pharmaceutical services finance
This half day workshop looks at the main fees and allowances that are paid to pharmacies and dispensing appliance contractors, how they are calculated and how they are recharged to commissioners.
Fitness powers
A full day workshop which looks at the:
- processing of the fitness information that is provided alongside an application for inclusion in a pharmaceutical list and the powers that are available to integrated care boards (ICBs) where issues are identified; and
options that are available to ICBs where there are fitness concerns regarding a contractor’s continued inclusion in one or more pharmaceutical list. - Market entry – processing applications
A full day workshop which looks at the eight stages of processing applications for inclusion in a pharmaceutical list and the decisions that ICBs will need to make as applications progress.
Market entry – decision-making
This full day workshop complements the processing applications workshop and works through the different regulations that will need to be considered when applications for inclusion in a pharmaceutical list are determined.
Review of the market entry tracker
This session will help teams work through their applications and cases to ensure that they are aware of them all, to review progress and identify ways of moving on those that have become stuck in the process.
The performance related sanctions
In this half day workshop we look at the performance related sanctions that can be used by ICBs where they identify breaches of terms of service. Although broadly similar to those for medical, dental and ophthalmic contracts there are some subtle differences that ICBs will need to be aware of.
Rurality and dispensing doctors
An area of the regulations that can be a minefield to work through. This full day workshop will go into the history of the regulatory framework for the provision of pharmaceutical services in rural areas to provide context for the challenges that can be faced today. It will focus on the determination of controlled localities, additional considerations for applications in such localities, dispensing by doctors and the rules around changes to the provision of that service.
Surgery sessions
We are now providing ‘open surgery sessions’ for teams that focus on a particular issue that they are dealing with and examples of topics covered to date include:
- How to respond to a proposal to provide local pharmaceutical services (LPS) – the session looked at the regulatory requirements and NHS England’s LPS guidance and then focussed on the consideration of whether or not the proposal was vexatious or frivolous and if not whether to select it for development.
- Dealing with the backlog of changes of director and/or superintendents.
- A change of ownership application where the sale of the business had fallen through as far as the seller was concerned but the buyer still intended to proceed.
