Patient Group Direction (PGD) courses

Patient Group Directions (PGDs) enable pharmacists to provide medicines and vaccines privately to support a wide range of patient groups and conditions. The NPA offers vaccination training and PGDs through our partnerships at very competitive rates on an extensive range of flu, travel, vaccination and non-vaccination/clinical (formerly oral/topical) PGDs.

PGDs enable pharmacists to supply and administer specified medicines to pre-defined groups of patients without a prescription as part of service delivery eg private flu vaccination.

Benefits to your business from offering services:

  • Increases your footfall and your revenue streams
  • Drives repeat demand
  • Provides the pharmacist with additional skill-set
  • Improves the visibility of your business in the local community profile
  • Develops your potential market

Services are good for your patients and customers as:

  • Community pharmacies are highly accessible
  • They have the assurance of being offered advice, medication and/or vaccination by a trained, accredited and trusted front-line healthcare professional
  • Your service is convenient
  • You may offer out-of-hours access due to extended opening hours

Understanding health improvement RSPH accredited

Both the RSPH and Department of Health believe that the workplace offers a real opportunity for health improvement, and employers are increasingly supporting the issue of staff health and wellbeing as good practice. Of course, you are in an ideal place to promote healthy living to your local community too.

  • Enable participants to gain better understanding and appreciation of how inequalities in health may develop and what the current policies are for addressing these.
  • Knowledge and understanding of the principles of promoting health and well-being and equip you to provide practical support for individuals trying to attain a healthier lifestyle.
  • Qualifying in Understanding Health Improvement will not only empower you in making healthier lifestyle choices, but also enable you to give advice thus enhancing the customer experience.

Understanding behaviour change RSPH accredited

The aim of this qualification is to provide the learner with the knowledge and confidence to offer opportunistic brief advice to, or engage in brief interventions with, individuals about behaviour change which could improve their health and well being.

Flu & Covid-19 Vaccination

Sexual health

Historically, sexual health was a matter patients would only discuss with their doctor but that's all changed, with pharmacists running sexual health clinics, seeing patients for everything from contraception and erectile dysfunction to period delay and STI testing.

Hepatitis B

Healthcare workers such as nurses, carers and first-aiders require a hepatitis B vaccination for their jobs and would benefit from conveniently located vaccination services.

Shingles

Whilst customers 70 years old and over qualify for a free shingles vaccine on the NHS, customers aged 50-69 are not eligible, leaving a demand for a private vaccination service.

Smoking cessation

There are established NHS programmes to help people give up smoking, with many prescribing medicinal products such as Champix® being supplied when traditional Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) products have failed. Whilst medicinal products can be very effective, often smokers fail to give up on their first attempt or simply start smoking again after weeks or months of giving up.

Each individual is limited to just one attempt at giving up smoking using prescribed medication on the NHS. This means they may not able to obtain the same medicinal products to support them to give up smoking a second time, leaving demand for a private smoking cessation service.

Measles

Although measles is a vaccine preventable disease, a recent Unicef report has placed the UK as having the 3rd highest rate of unvaccinated children out of the 10 highest-income countries. Alarmingly, more than 0.5 million UK children are currently at risk of contracting the potentially deadly measles virus because they have not been vaccinated. Public Health England also reports that there were 966 confirmed cases of measles in England alone during 2018 (nearly 4 times the number in 2017); with most cases reported in people over the age of 15.

To halt this worrying trend it is vital that pharmacists begin raising awareness of the importance of vaccination and start offering the service at their pharmacies.

Skincare

Patients regularly turn to their pharmacy for all manner of creams and lotions looking to discover that magic skin remedy. By running a comprehensive skincare clinic you can help patients make an informed decision as to which treatment is most appropriate