Services Database Extended Care Service (Tier 1)

The Community Pharmacy Extended Care Service, Tier 1, aims to provide
eligible patients who are registered with a General Practitioner (GP)
contracted to NHS England & Improvement Midlands Region with access to
support for the treatment of the following:

• Treatment of Simple UTI in Females (from 16 years up to 65 years of
  age)
• Treatment of Acute Bacterial Conjunctivitis (for children aged 3
  months to 2 years)

The service will be provided through Community Pharmacies contracted to
NHS England & Improvement Midlands Region who have signed this local
enhanced service agreement to provide this service.

Aims of the scheme
The overall aim of the scheme is to ensure that patients can access
self-care advice for the treatment of a range of conditions, and, where
appropriate, can be supplied with antibiotics or other prescription only
medicines to treat their condition. This provides an alternative location
from which patients can seek advice and treatment, rather than
seeking treatment via a prescription from their General Practitioner
(GP) or Out of Hours (OHH) provider, walk in centre or accident and
emergency.

• Educate patients to seek advice and treatment from the most
  appropriate healthcare setting
• Improve patient’s access to advice and appropriate treatment for these
  ailments via Community Pharmacy
• Reduce GP workload for these ailments allowing greater focus on
  more complex and urgent medical conditions
• Educate patients with aim of reducing requests for inappropriate
  supplies of antibiotics
• Promote the role of the pharmacist and self-care
• Improve working relationships between doctors and pharmacists

The service is offered as a quicker alternative for patients to access
healthcare. Patient may choose to refuse this service and continue to
access treatments in the same way as they have done previously.