Get involved with IT

Events which will include a focus on healthcare IT are listed further below. Community Pharmacy IT Group meets for its main meetings each quarter and papers and information is at the Community Pharmacy IT Group webpage.

Upcoming and recent events

• March 6th, 2024: Community Pharmacy IT Group: Main meeting (virtual)
• March 12th-13th, 2024: Rewired, Birmingham (face-to-face)
• March 12th, 2024: Primary Care Conference, (face-to-face)
• April 24th-25th, 2024: Digital Healthcare Show, (face-to-face)
• May 10th-11th, 2024: Clinical Pharmacy Congress, London
• June 5th, 2024: Community Pharmacy IT Group: Main meeting (virtual)
• September 24th, 2024: Healthcare Efficiency Through Technology (HETT) / UK Health Show (face-to-face)
• October 13th-14th, 2024: Pharmacy Show including the technology hub (face-to-face)

(One-off and annual events are highlighted gold. Also see: Digitalhealth.net webinars/events), FutureNHS events (promoted to FutureNHS members), Kings Fund events and NHS Digital events, NHS Transformation Directorate  events.

Previous events include

• May 12th-13th, 2021: Clinical Pharmacy Congress, London
• September 21st, 2022 10am-12.50: Community Pharmacy IT Group, (virtual quarterly meeting)
• September 29th, 2022 12.00pm-1.00pm: Digital technologies and interoperability: enabling the future of integrated care (virtual)
• October 11th, 2022 9.30am-5.00pm: Digital health and care congress 2022 (face-to-face)
• October 11th, 2022 9.30am-10.15am: Community Pharmacy IT Group: Drug Tariff IT event (special meeting)
• October 12th, 2022 9.30am-10.15am: Community Pharmacy IT Group: dm+d medicine code changes event (special meeting)
• October 12th, 2022 10.30am-11.15am: Community Pharmacy IT Group: Vaccines, National Booking Service and appointments (special meeting)
• October 16th-17th, 2022 9.30am-5.00pm: Pharmacy Show, including the technology hub (face-to-face)
• October 27th, 2022 11am-11.45am: Community Pharmacy IT Group: Booking and Referral Standards (BaRS) (special meeting)
• November 7th, 2022 noon-12.55pm: Community Pharmacy IT Group: Introduction to the Pharmacy Contraception Service (special meeting)
• December 8th, 2022 9.30am-11am: Connecting with & benefitting from patient records webinar (for IT group and LPCs), hosted by CP ITG/NHSTD
• February 1st, 2023, Digital Primary Care Conference
• February 2nd,2023: Pharmacy introduction to the National Care Records Service
• February 7th, 2023: Introduction to the National Care Records Service 
• March 13th, 2023 10am-12.45: Community Pharmacy IT Group, (virtual quarterly meeting)
• March 14th-15th, 2023: Rewired, (face-to-face)
• June 7th, 2023 10am-12.40: Community Pharmacy IT Group, (virtual quarterly meeting)
• June 12th-16th, 2023, London Tech Week
• July 17th, 2023: Community Pharmacy IT Group: NHS Profile Manager updates including flu vaccine booking link field
• July 24th, 2023: Community Pharmacy IT Group: EPS trackability and NHS App workshop
• August 30th, 2023 12.20-13.30: ICB Digital Design Principles and Interoperability (webinar)
• September 20th, 2023 10am-12.45: Community Pharmacy IT Group: IT for the Primary Care Recovery Plan (virtual)
• October 11th-12th, 2023: Digital health and care congress 2023 (face-to-face)
• November 8th, 2023: Community Pharmacy IT Group: Main meeting (virtual)
• November 15th, 2023: Community Pharmacy IT Group: Sub-group meeting (virtual)
• December 12th, 2023: NHS Genomics Healthcare Summit, London (face-to-face)

To have an event added here or for a list of past events, please contact it@cpe.org.uk.

Feedback / take part

• If you are a pharmacy contractor who would like to test new pharmacy IT developments then please enter your details onto our IT feedback form.
• Join Community Pharmacy Digital email Group (CPDG). The email discussion forum is a place for pharmacy staff, and Local Pharmaceutical Committee (LPC) members to share ideas about digital pharmacy matters using an email address. CPDG also helps to inform Community Pharmacy IT Group’s (CP ITG’s) work.
• Use the IT feedback form. to volunteer for future pilot opportunities.

Surveys 

Look-out for other  IT survey opportunities including those highlighted for those pharmacy team members that join Community Pharmacy Digital email Group (CPDG) or for those that are signed up to the Community Pharmacy England newsletter.

Consultations

• NHS Digital consulations hub (various deadlines)

Consider use of social media to discuss community pharmacy IT matters. Community Pharmacy England has a Guide to pharmacy social media use.

Learn more about pharmacy IT by viewing our information on pharmacy IT policies and structures, considering further digital training and exploring our IT hub page.

During this webinar, delegates will be given an update on the work by the NHS and Community Pharmacy IT Group’s (CP ITG) work to support increasing community pharmacy access to records.

This event is a follow-up to the summer 2021 records event, to assess progress and support next steps as well as to explore differences between GP Connect and ShCR records. And to look for opportunities to progress best use of these.

Presenters will include NHS Digital GP Connect team, and the NHS England Shared Care Record (ShCR) team.

Increased records access for health and care staff, including pharmacy teams, was outlined as one of the priorities of the NHS Long Term Plan.

The event is being jointly hosted by NHS England’s Transformation Directorate and CP ITG. It will include sessions aimed at Local Pharmaceutical Committees (LPCs).

Date and time: Thursday 8th December, 9.30am-11.30am
Location: Online event (after your registration has been approved, you will be provided with the meeting detail including the Zoom meeting joining link)
Cost: There is no delegate fee for this event. However, if once registered you can no longer make the event, please email Gabriele Skieriute to let us know.
Guidance to support contractors and LPCs seeking access to records: Health records in pharmacy

Register for this event now: complete the form by clicking here.

NHS Digital are exploring launching a new service that could do away with the need for face-to-face identity checks for anyone needing a new smartcard. The new service could go one step beyond the existing Covid workaround [linked to COVID specific legislation] that involves a video call  (e.g. MS Teams). Whilst that may be more convenient and greener than the original process

The new system is hoped to maintain a high authentication level and have the added benefit of enabling staff to register themselves wherever and whenever is most convenient for them.

The new service may essentially involve two steps:

1. Being sent a secure link to a webpage where basic details can be input; and
2. Being sent a link to an app that could allow you to show documents and be photographed.

These represent the same document checks as the current standard service.

Applying using this new method could run in parallel with the existing registration service, since not everyone has a smartphone or is comfortable using one.

The new service would not be restricted to pharmacy, it would run out across the entire NHS. Given that anyone requiring access to patient records will have to go through this process there are huge savings to be made from streamlining it.

NHS Digital are performing discovery work and want to know of pharmacy team feedback.

Please contact it@cpe.org.uk if you can take part. You’ll be able to take part with a shot phone interview which will help to ensure NHS Digital are taking into account extra community pharmacy user input.

The discovery team would be interested to speak with a mixture of pharmacy team members including locums, regular staff and head office staff.

NHS Transformation Directorate are exploring what an effective learning network to support digital services should look like for the Community Pharmacy sector.

Considerations

1. What would a successful learning network look like for you?
2. What gaps currently exist in sharing learning and best practice between different Pharmacy stakeholders?
3. What are the disadvantages with learning networks?
4. What sort of topics would you like to discuss in a network like this?
5. What would make the learning network as engaging as possible for you?
6. How can we ensure a learning network is sustainable?

If you would like to feed in about these please email it@cpe.org.uk. Community Pharmacy England may link you up with the project team.

Community Pharmacy England and CP ITG are also directly feeding into NHS Transformation Directorate.

NHS Digital and Community Pharmacy England is inviting community pharmacy contractors to take part in research trialling the new NHSmail Virtual Visits appointment booking and remote consultation platform.

Pharmacy teams taking part in the pilot, will be able to use the Virtual Visits tool to experiment with booking and carrying out face to face and/or virtual patient consultations. The tool works in conjunction with NHSmail Microsoft Teams and the Microsoft Booking platform.

Prerequisites for community pharmacy team members taking part in the pilot are:

• an active personal NHSmail account;
• access to the pharmacy’s shared NHSmail inbox;
• Microsoft Teams installed on a computer or tablet;
• a computer or device with a webcam.

This research will help support the development of this tool, ensuring that it is as easy to use as possible for pharmacy teams. If you would like to get involved with this research, we recommend that you register your interest as soon as possible.

Please complete this short web form to register interest to pilot and use Virtual Visits. Your information will be shared with the project team so that you can be contacted if you are selected.

If you want to learn more before registering your interest, please email it@cpe.org.uk with ‘Virtual Visits pilot’ in the email subject title.

Read more: NHSmail and Pharmacy video conferencing.

Read more about: NHSmail and Pharmacy video conferencing.