Services Database Community Pharmacy: Emergency Hormonal Contraception (EHC) to under 25s and Chlamydia screening (East Sussex County Council Area)

This service is for the provision of free Emergency Hormonal Contraception (EHC),
pregnancy testing, condom provision under the East Sussex C-Card Condom distribution
scheme for young people (C-Card) and chlamydia screening kits the demand for which may
be urgent and/or unpredictable.
This service covers:
• Assessing and dispensing, under local Patient Group Direction (PGD), free
emergency hormonal contraception to East Sussex residents aged 25 and under.
• Provision of free pregnancy testing to East Sussex residents aged 25 and under
• Provision of free chlamydia screening tests to all under 25s who request a service
and opportunistically for any under 25 year old who uses the premises.
• Provision of free chlamydia screening postal kits for those aged over 25.

Patient Group Directions have been agreed for the supply of EHC by community
pharmacies in East Sussex.
Emergency contraception may only be supplied by a pharmacist accredited under the
accompanying Patient Group Direction (PGD). Pharmacists providing the service must
sign the PGD and the PGD must also be counter signed by an authorising manager.
Pharmacy staff must also be trained to confidentially refer each request for EHC to the
accredited pharmacist.
The pharmacy contractor must ensure that pharmacists providing the service are
competent to do so. Pharmacists will demonstrate to the pharmacy contractor that they
have the necessary knowledge and skills to provide the service by completing the
community pharmacy emergency contraception Declaration of Competence (DoC) on the
CPPE website. www.cppe.ac.uk
As part of the DoC it is a mandatory requirement of this service specification to complete
the following CPPE safeguarding e-learning:
Safeguarding children and vulnerable adults: a guide for the pharmacy team
Completion of the programme and the associated Level 2 assessment will fulfil the
safeguarding requirements at Level 2 for pharmacists as required for the NHSE Quality
Payment Scheme and by the intercollegiate document Safeguarding children and young
people.
Signing the DoC whilst not meeting the competencies may constitute or be treated as a
fitness to practice issue. The pharmacy contractor must keep on the pharmacy premises
copies of each DoC completed by pharmacists that they employ/engage to deliver the
service along with a signed copy of the PGD.
The declaration of competence must be updated every 3 years.