To help PCNs provide a higher standard of patient-centric care requires a willingness to be adaptable and practical at all times. After all, the world of healthcare is forever changing. With this in mind, the services we provide at Primary Care Support Services are continually evolving to help our clients meet the challenges of everything from increased workloads and data protection to staying up-to-date with the latest CQC requirements. Here are just some of the services our teams provide
Specialist advice
If your clinician has any queries about what medication they can or should prescribe, our teams can check local and national guidance and provide recommendations. Additionally, they’ll provide specialist guidance on specific medications, e.g. whether a pill can be crushed to aid those with swallowing difficulties. We also have strong partnerships with many pharmacies and manufacturers, enabling us to quickly resolve stock issues.
Quality and Outcomes Framework recall
We can quickly set-up a strong recall system, built around month of birth, that will ensure all monitoring is up-to-date and the patient gets booked in with the relevant clinician at the surgery as fast as possible. This increased efficiency also minimises unnecessary patient contact, freeing up valuable time.
Bespoke audits
Working closely with clinicians we can run tailored audits that suit any level of requirement and can be repeated as often as necessary. Ordinarily, this will include building a search, reviewing the list of patients and taking any necessary actions, e.g. arranging blood tests or medication reviews to suit the requirements of the audit.
Medicines reconciliation
All inbound clinical documents relating to medication – including discharge letters and outpatient clinic letters – can be directed to our team for them to review and make any relevant changes. This includes checking hospital pathology systems, transcribing recent blood test results across, and arranging any necessary follow-ups, e.g. blood test in two weeks after discharge or a medication review with a relevant clinician if a dose has been recently changed.
High-risk drug monitoring
Offered both separately and as part of our CQC preparation, our DMARD and high-risk drug monitoring provides priceless peace of mind. We have a proven search and recall process that significantly increases the quality of medication safety in this group, alongside a Standard Operating Procedure template that we’re always willing to share with practices to allow them to customise to suit their own processes.
Care Quality Commission preparation
We can work with the surgery on a short-term or regular basis to review all the medicines related to CQC searches, and work through the specific requirements ahead of an inspection.
Investment and Impact Fund management
We have a detailed understanding of the IFF and all the coding necessary for each indicator. We can work with practices to project manage the IIF using their existing staff, or provide extra pharmacy technicians, pharmacists and care coordinators staff via ARRS (Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme) funding to help the practice meet the agreed set of indicators.
Long-term conditions recalls
We arrange for staff (funded via ARRS) to provide administrative support to enable practices to coordinate and book in patients with the relevant clinicians. This helps ensure all physical monitoring is up-to-date so that the patient and clinician have everything at hand to achieve the most efficient and effective review.
Cancer screen coordination
We support practices with various cancer screening projects such as smears, bowel, breast and QFITs, ensuring that patients are provided with the up-to-date and relevant information they need at the correct time. Our teams are also skilled in supporting at-risk groups of patients such as those with severe mental illness, blindless and learning difficulties, those from BAME and LGBTQ+ backgrounds, or where patients do not speak English as a first language.
Further support
In addition to the main services highlighted above, we also provide support to our clients and their patients with the following:
Ad-hoc clinical system searches designed to match your needs
Custom-built templates, alerts and coding prompts
Full prescription management hub
Develop and engage local projects with community pharmacies
Increase QOF prevalence
Training and development sessions for clinical and non-clinical teams
Get in touch
Want to know more about our clinical and non-clinical support? Don’t be shy.
