You are invited to attend a meeting entitled Smoking Cessation and Mental Health: What's the Connection? to be hosted by Pfizer on 9th May 2013 at The Hilton,Watford.

As a reminder to pharmacy contractors of the changes coming in to effect on 1st April 2013, we have summarised them here.

This is a reminder for all contractors to submit their quarterly MUR & NMS figures to the Herts & South Midlands Area Team by 15th April 2013.

Information concerning Chlamydia screening and Smoking Cessation secure email addresses, public health payment processes following the official transfer of public health functions to Hertfordshire County Council and a revised NRT invoice template and instruction sheet which will be required for all NRT dispensed under the Letter of Recommendation Scheme from 1.4.2013, has been e-mailed to you today.

The stop smoking team will be trying to contact you all over the next week or so to ensure that you are all aware of the changes and that all data entry is complete before the end of the year to ensure final payments for 12/13 are made.

The services also want to ensure that they have the most up to date contact details for you to ensure a smooth transition and continuity of service provision for our clients and providers.

You are invited to attend a PCT workshop providing training on the provision of the NHS Herts Sexual Health Service including the supply of emergency hormonal contraception using a Patient Group Direction. There will be a set of multiple choice questions (MCQ) to be completed at the end of the workshop.

Hertfordshire LPC & Herts & Beds LMC have been working together to produce a Managed Repeats Best Practice document to support both pharmacists and GPs.

No Smoking Day is on 13 March 2013. On the day, more than a million smokers are expected to make a quit attempt, so this is an ideal and unique opportunity to reach out to smokers just when they are considering quitting. Get involved and make a difference. It's easy!

Pharmacists needing support to gain accreditation for this much needed service can sign up to attend a April meeting.
They must bring with them a Wi-Fi enabled laptop/iPad etc. and prior study of the most recent CPPE packages on:
1. Emergency Hormonal Contraception
2. Contraception Open Learning
3. Safeguarding and Child Protection
These are necessary in order to gain accreditation at the event.

PSNC has today highlighted key changes that contractors and LPCs will need to be aware of within the newly laid National Health Service (Pharmaceutical and Local Pharmaceutical Services) Regulations 2013.

The regulations were laid on Friday (February 22) and will come into force on April 1st 2013.

They replace the existing pharmaceutical regulations to accommodate the structural changes being made to the NHS and to include the new organisations within it.

The details of the PCT directed audit for 2012-13 has been e-mailed to all contractors.

The NHS (Pharmaceutical Services ) Regulations 2012 require that pharmacists and their staff undertake one audit each year as directed by the PCT.

The audit for 2012/13 is based on compliance with MHRA guidance on NSAID prescribing.

An interactive, 2 hour course equipping pharmacy staff with the knowledge and skills required to screen for potentially harmful patterns of alcohol use and to provide brief advice based on the Audit-C screening tool developed by the World Health Organisation.

The next workshop for pharmacists wishing to provide treatment for chlamydia will be held on 25th February in Welwyn Garden City.

Mount Vernon Cancer Network (MVCN) – Ovarian Cancer Awareness Campaign

We recognise that this campaign is not one of NHS Hertfordshire’s 6 health promotional campaigns, however we would like to bring this to your attention and appreciate your support for this worthwhile national campaign.

At the end of 2012, a number of community pharmacies in Hertfordshire were commissioned by NHS Hertfordshire to provide flu vaccination under a PGD.

This article will provide information for signposting if you were unable to do so.

QUITKITS 2012
QuitKits are a national campaign from the Department of Health. The campaign's objectives is to drive quit attempts from January to March 2013 by reinforcing motivation to quit by exposing the outcomes of smoking and triggering the immediate quitting action.

From 5th November 2012, a pilot will commence to look at direct referral of patients to their community pharmacy for either NMS or Discharge MUR.

The pilot will run for four weeks and concentrate on suitable patients discharged from the Cardiac Care Unit at the Lister Hospital in Stevenage.

Every pharmacy in East & North Herts CCG may be involved, and will receive information and template forms in the post.

It is really important that you check your NHS Mail account once or twice every day to ensure that you receive important information such as Drug Alerts as soon as possible.

If you signed up to provide the Community Pharmacy Falls Service then this article is for you!!

There are now a number of pharmacies across Hertfordshire that are operating under a LES to provide immediate access to Emergency Medicines.

The pharmacies will stock a defined list of specialist medicines to enable immediate access to drugs that would not ordinarily be kept in stock but may be required in emergency situations, based on gaps identified in the Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment. This includes palliative care, bacterial meningitis prophylaxis, local viral epidemics and emergency situations such as during a flu pandemic.

The Department of Health has now published the clinical governance approved particulars that are referred to in the Regulations and which specify additional detail about the requirements that pharmacies must comply with.

There are new approved particulars for premises, information governance and incident reporting as well as revised approved particulars for the pharmacy practice leaflet and patient satisfaction survey.

The effective date of the approved particulars is 1 July 2012 and consequently pharmacy contractors have until then to implement the changes.

Alongside the publication of the approved particulars PSNC and NHS Employers have published comprehensive guidance for pharmacy contractors and PCTs.

In Hertfordshire, the Electronic Prescribing System (EPS) has reached its second stage (Release 2). Initially, the roll out will start in small geographically discreet localities where the majority of surgery's prescriptions are dispensed in a small number of community pharmacies.

The learning from these sites will inform the future rollout programme as well as national progress.

NHS Hertfordshire has just released its Health Promotion programme for community pharmacy 2012/13

There are FIVE campaigns this year but each is linked to the Self Care Campaign that started this year and will run through 2012/13.

Details of the campaigns can be found on the LPC website in the Public Health Section

NHS Hertfordshire has released the updated LES and PGD for the supply of Eergency Hormonal Contraception to suitable patients in Hertfordshire.

A new policy has been launched regarding the recommendation of Nicotine Replacement Therapy to pregnmant smokers.

This new policy is especially important for Stop Smoking Advisers who have attended the Pregnancy & Stop Smoking training course.