Dear Member,

We MUST offer SHIELDED patients a delivery service – This is part of our terms of service. 

An ADVANCED service has been commissioned for delivery of prescriptions to SHEILDED patients ONLY – Deliveries for all other patients should be done through your normal delivery method this includes patients over the age of 70.

This service has been commissioned from Thursday 9th April 2020 until the 1st July 2020 (this will be extended if needed)– You will need to look back at your delivery records and identify patients in this category you have delivered to, in order to claim payment. 

These patients will have a flag on their summary care records – GPs have the ability to add or remove patients from this category if there are changes to their condition. Click here to find out more about the FLAG. If checking an SCR for a flag you do not need to seek consent from the patient to view their SCR

What you need to do:

  1.  Identify if a patient is in the shielded category using their SCR.

  2.  Ask this patient if they have a volunteer who could collect their prescription on their behalf, if no;

  3.  Offer them a delivery service from your pharmacy.

  4.  If you cannot, arrange the delivery from another pharmacy on your behalf (they are able to claim the advanced payment) or;

  5.  Send the prescription to another pharmacy who is able to deliver to this patient.

  6.  You must keep a record of the deliveries which you have undertaken as there will be post-payment verification checks.

One of our members, Reena Barai has created an excellent calling script for members to use – please find attached.

REMEMBER: not all patients will identify as being SHIELDED so it is up to us to make sure we are checking their SCR for the FLAG.

A delivery SOP for this service will be made available on Tuesday.

Funding:

The ADVANCED service funding:

  o   £5 per delivery plus an allowance for VAT

  o   Must be claimed via MYS

  o   More details to follow

The ESSENTIAL service funding

  o   Pharmacies will be automatically paid the following monthly allowance to recognise the work involved with identifying shielded patients.

This payment is banded based on prescription volume:

Number of items per month from April 2020	Monthly payment from April 2020
0 – 100	£   –
101 – 2,500	£ 34
2,501 – 5,000	£ 396
5,001 – 12,500	£ 500
12,501 – 19,167	£ 542
19,168+	£ 563

Taking on Volunteers on Behalf of the Pharmacy:

PharmaPlus does advise you to be careful when taking on volunteers to deliver patients medication and bear in mind the following: 

    o   Potential errors which could occur e.g. delivering to the wrong patient, not maintaining storage requirements.

    o   Schedule 2 and 3 Controlled drugs MUST not be delivered and you should use your professional judgement as to whether schedule 2 and 3 controlled drugs are delivered by volunteers & the same applies to Fridge lines.

    o   Patient consent.

    o   The volunteer must have a DBS check.

    o   You must provide them with training on the delivery service and they should sign the SOP. This must include what to do if delivery can not be made.

    o   The best option is to use a patient initiated volunteer or to use your existing delivery system.

    o   Please CHECK with your insurance provider before taking on a volunteer.

Volunteer Help for Shielded Patients

Shielded patients who do not have friends, family or a support network in their community who can help them to get food and to deliver prescriptions can also register to receive support by completing a form at www.gov.uk/coronavirus-extremely-vulnerable or by calling the Government’s dedicated helpline on 0800 0288327.

Pharmacy teams are also able to request support for shielded patients and other isolated, vulnerable people, by submitting a request for support from the RVS/NHS Volunteer Responders via:

      o   the patient referral form: goodsamapp.org/NHSreferral;

      o   the GoodSam app; or

      o   the RVS telephone call centre – 0808 196 3382

Training for delivery staff has been provided by Buttercups Training.

Please get in touch with PharmaPlus office if you need any further information.

Regards,