Pharmacy Quality Scheme (PQS)

Pharmacy Quality Scheme 2023/24 Launched

This year’s PQS launched on 1^st June 2023 and consists of one gateway criterion (NMS) and three domains.

To qualify for payment, contractors must meet the gateway criterion by the end of 31 December 2023.

You can then claim payment during the declaration period, between 9am on 5 February 2024 and 11.59pm on 1 March 2024.

Contractors will also be able to claim an aspiration payment. This must be claimed between 9:00 on 4 September 2023 to 23:59 on 29 September 2023.The aspiration payment is optional for pharmacy contractors and not claiming it will not impact on the pharmacy contractor’s ability to claim payment for PQS 2023/24.

Further detail can be found in the June 2023 Drug Tariff and NHS England Pharmacy Quality Scheme Guidance 2023/24.

As always, GMLPC will be providing further details to help guide contractors through the scheme via our newsletters and website. Look out for this over the coming weeks! Subscribe to the GMLPC Newsletters to ensure you receive the latest updates – Subscribe here

Key Deadline for Contractors

Aspiration Payment Window

The aspiration payment must be claimed between 09.00 on 4th September 2023 and 23.59 on 29th September 2023 via NHSBSA’s MYS application.

Gateway Criteria – New Medicines Service

By the end of 31 December 2023, pharmacy contractors must meet the gateway criterion to qualify for a PQS 2023/24 payment.

Contractors will not be required to make a declaration for this gateway criterion as the automatic verification assessment of whether a contractor has met the NMS gateway criterion will be confirmed against the NHSBSA’s payment data for NMS.

Contractors must have delivered a minimum of 15 NMS between 1 April 2023 and by the end of 31 December 2023 and have claimed for these by 5 January 2024. Any claims for NMS submitted to the NHSBSA after 5 January 2024 will not be considered for the PQS gateway.

Any pharmacies that fail to have claimed for 15 NMS by 5 January 2024 will not have met this gateway requirement and will not be able to submit a declaration for the quality domains during the declaration period.

Declaration Window

Contractors must claim payment for the PQS 2023/24 during the declaration period which is between 09.00 on 5 February 2024 and 23.59 on 1 March 2024 via NHSBSA’s MYS application.

Demonstrate evidence of meeting criteria

Contractors must have evidence to demonstrate meeting the gateway criteria and the domains that they have claimed for by the end of 31st March 2024.

PQS Important Dates

Please note this list is not exhaustive and highlights some of the key dates in the PQS calendar. Please see the full guidance document for full details.

Date	Domain	Action
ASAP	Medicines Safety & Optimisation – High Risk Medicines – Palliative Care	Update NHS Profile Manager to show if you are a Pharmacy Palliative Care Medication Stockholder and routinely hold the 16 palliative and end of life critical medicines
ASAP	Medicines Safety & Optimisation – High Risk Medicines – Anticoagulant Audit	Review the recommendations for community pharmacy from the first anticoagulant audit. Complete the 2023/24 anticoagulant audit by 31 March 2024 Data must be collected for 2 weeks, with a minimum sample size of 15 patients, extended to 4 weeks if 15 patients has not been achieved.
ASAP	Prevention – Antimicrobial Stewardship	Review the recommendations for community pharmacy from the first TARGET Antibiotic Checklist data collection. Complete 2023/24 data collection by 31 March 2024. Data must be collected for 4 weeks, with a minimum sample size of 25 patients, extended to 8 weeks if 25 patients has not been achieved.
1^st Sept	Prevention – Antimicrobial Stewardship	TARGET Treating Your Infections Leaflets data collection tool available on MYS. Review the recommendations for community pharmacy from the first TARGET Treating Your Infections data collection. Complete 2023/24 data collection by 31 March 2024. Data must be collected for 4 weeks, with a minimum sample of 15 patients for each leaflet (UTI and RTI ), extended to 8 weeks if this has not been achieved.
4^th Sept – 29^th Sept	Aspiration Payment	Aspiration payment window will be open between 09.00 on 4 September 2023 and 23:59 on 29 September through MYS
31^st Dec 24	Gateway Criterion	Pharmacies must complete 15 NMS between 1 April 2023 and 31 December 2023.
5^th Jan 24	Gateway Criterion	Pharmacies must have claimed for a minimum of 15 NMS between 1 April 2023 and 5 January 2024 to be eligible for a PQS payment.
5^th Feb 24	Prevention – Antimicrobial Stewardship	Last chance to start both the TARGET Antibiotic Checklist and Antibiotic TARGET leaflet data collections in time for 31 March 2024 completion.
5^th Feb – 1^st Mar 24	PQS Declaration Window	The PQS declaration window will be open between 09:00 on 5 February 2024 and 23:59 on 1 March 2024 through MYS.
4^th Mar 24	Medicines Safety & Optimisation – High Risk Medicines – Anticoagulant Audit	Last chance to start the anticoagulant audit in time for 31 March 2024 completion.
31^st Mar 24	End	All activity must be completed including training.

Overview of PQS Domains 2023/24

The full guidance document for the PQS 2023/24 can be found here . Please refer to this to determine the full requirements of each quality criterion.

PQS Domain	Quality Criteria	Points (band 4 contractor)
Gateway	Advanced Services – at least 15 New Medicine Service (NMS) consultations	N/A
Medicines safety and optimisation	High risk medicines – anticoagulant audit Palliative and end of life care (PEoLC)	15
Respiratory	Inhaler technique checks Inhaler waste management Referrals for patients using 3 or more bronchodilators in 6 months Use of a spacer in patients aged 5-15 years Personalised Asthma Action Plans (PAAP)	25
Prevention	Antimicrobial stewardship and infection prevention and control	20
Total		60

PSNC – PQS Hub Webpage

PSNC regularly update their PQS hub page to reflect any additional information that has been published on the Scheme and additional resources and FAQs to support contractors will continue to be added to this page.

Resources to support you

NMS Toolkit

GMLPC has produced a toolkit for contractors to help you deliver NMS. This includes information about funding agreements, training requirements and patient eligibility criteria.

Please note: this toolkit is up to date as of December 2022 and is subject to change

Pharmacy Quality Scheme 23/24 – FREE Virtual Outcomes Online Course

To help our contractors complete the scheme this, a FREE course has been made available via Virtual Outcomes. The course will guide you through the 3 domains and highlight the key requirements that you need to achieve to claim your money.

Overview of the Gateway Criteria, Domains and Training Requirements

Training Requirements

CPPE offer learning and assessments to support you in achieving criteria relating to the Respiratory domain in the 2023/2024 version of the scheme.

They also provide links to the learning available from elearning for healthcare required to support you in achieving criteria in the Prevention domain.

To view these training resources, please visit the link below:
https://www.cppe.ac.uk/services/pharmacy-quality-scheme

The training in the table below must be completed by relevant members of the pharmacy team by the end of 31 March 2024.

Criterion

Training

Participation

Validity

Respiratory

CPPE Inhaler technique for health professionals: getting it right e –
learning OR CPPE Optimising inhaler technique: improving outcomes
workshop AND Inhaler technique for health professionals e-assessment

All pharmacists

4 years

Antimicrobial stewardship

Antimicrobial Stewardship for
Community Pharmacy e-learning and e-assessmentInfection prevention and control level

e-learning and e-assessment

Infection prevention and control level

e-learning and e-assessment

All patient-facing staff providing advice on medicines or healthcare

All non-registered pharmacy staff

All registered pharmacy professionals

3 years