Self Care & Supporting your Patients

Self-care leaflets for patients

• The Self Care Forum publishes factsheets on a wide range of conditions including back pain, eczema and migraine.
• The NHS website also has excellent information that you can download for patients via this A-Z list of conditions.

NHS GM Pain Management Resources Hub

Support survivors of sexual assault, abuse or violence

NHS England has launched a campaign to raise awareness of Sexual Assault Referral Centres (SARCs). These centres provide 24/7 practical, medical, and emotional support to anyone affected by sexual violence without requiring police involvement.

Pharmacy owners and their team members can find their local SARC at www.nhs.uk/SARCs to guide individuals in need.

If you would like to provide further support, you can also use available campaign assets

You can access additional training on identifying and responding to sexual abuse here

HIV Briefing: What You Need to Know

Late diagnosis, stigma, and missed opportunities in primary care pose serious challenges in relation to HIV. To address these issues, help healthcare professionals to detect HIV early and support patients a briefing has been produced. Read the briefing to find out how you can make a difference

Patient centered care

NHSE&I Guidance: Patient Consultations

NHSE&I have developed a range of resources to help clinicians during patient consultations. This guidance has been co-designed with clinicians and patients, and informed by a review of existing guidance and research evidence. Click the links below to view the resources.

Choosing how to consult – Full guide
Choosing how to consult – Quick guide

Marie Curie and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society: Daffodil Standards

These standards will help you improve palliative and end-of-life care.

Register for more information and to view the standards.

NHS England Community Pharmacy Animation

NHS England has produced this short animation around community pharmacy explaining the wealth of expertise on hand in the pharmacy. This would be really useful for patients. If you wish to download the video to use on your website, or in your waiting room click here

Patient Leaflet: What to Do if you Fall

Within the leaflet, there is information around what to do if you fall, when you should ring 999, when to contact NHS 111 and other top tips.

Swallowing Tablets Leaflet

The Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has created a leaflet to help teach children to swallow tablets which can be found here.  It may be useful for pharmacy teams to share with parents helping their children learn to take tablets.

Supporting patients with Colorectal Cancer symptoms

To help you to support patients with Colorectal Cancer symptoms, NHS GM Cancer Alliance have produced a helpful poster with key questions to ask the patient, the GP referral process and information about how patients can use a FIT (Faecal Immunochemical Test) to screen for Bowel Cancer. View and download the poster

Recognising Tick Bites and Lyme Disease

While tick bites and Lyme disease is not treatable under Pharmacy First, patients presenting with these or other similar conditions will need to signposted onwards. Therefore it’s useful for pharmacy teams to learn more about these conditions to better enable them to spot symptoms.

To help with this, Lyme Disease UK has produced a range of resources:

• Photo examples to diagnose the EM rash
• Learning resources for pharmacy teams
• Information for health professionals

Nitazene information sheets

Nitazenes have been detected in a variety of illicit substances in Norfolk including Heroin, Crack Cocaine and Ketamine.

Nitazene information sheets have been produced to share further detail:

nitazenes-factsheets-nitazenes-what-to-look-out-for

nitazenes-factsheets-nitazenes-and-naloxone

Scabies resources

Following the latest scabies outbreak in Trafford and the rise of national cases,  some resources have been published to help identify and treat the condition.

Would you know if you had scabies – Briefing to help identify the condition

Family contact treatment sheet

NHS App Patient Guide

With the upcoming rollout of Patient Led Ordering, it’s a good idea to ensure that your patients are able to confidently use the NHS app. To help with this, a useful patient guide has been published.

NHS Poster – Sorry, we are busier than usual

To help you encourage patients to be patient during busy times in your pharmacy, the NHS have published a useful poster for you to display

Promoting Prescription Prepayment Certificates

In light of the rising cost of living, some people are finding it difficult to afford medicines. NHS prescription prepayment certificates (PPCs) could help them save money. To help pharmacy teams raise awareness of these, posters are available to display. Download your PPC posters

NHS SPS: Updated PGD Guidance

NHS Specialist Pharmacy Service (SPS) has updated its Introduction to PGDs guidance, setting out what a PGD is and how it is used in clinical practice. Read more

Repeat Prescribing Toolkit

The Repeat Prescribing Toolkit is jointly published today by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and the Royal College of General Practitioners. It was commissioned by NHS England as one of the National Overprescribing Review recommendations.

This is an important piece of work and a great collaboration between pharmacy and GPs.

Keep Antibiotics Working Campaign

UKHSA has launched their Keep Antibiotics Working campaign to raise awareness of the importance of using antibiotics in the right way.

Get involved: View and download your materials here

LFD: How to encourage update and improve patient access to testing

A recent project has shown that pharmacies can significantly increase uptake, providing hundreds of kits, if they adopt a proactive approach to identifying and contacting eligible patients.

The pharmacies searched their PMRs to identify patients including aged 85 and over, care home residents aged 70 and over and medications indicating a weakened immune system. The patients were contacted by phone and over 40% agreed to receive a box of kits in their next normal delivery.

A financial evaluation showed a profitable return for pharmacies whilst improving vulnerable patients’ access to tests.

You can view an Executive Summary of the report and there are contact details should you wish to request the full report.