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

Migraine

With debilitating symptoms such as nausea, vomiting and increased sensitivity to light or sound, migraine is a common health condition, affecting around one in every five women and around one in every 15 men in the UK.

Patients regularly turn to pharmacies for means of easing their symptoms so it is a perfect setting for a comprehensive migraine prevention and treatment clinical service.

Pick 'n' mix Clinic

While we have grouped together a number of our service packages to create specific clinics, we recognise that it is also important to give pharmacists the option of tailoring their offering to the needs of their patients.

The Pharmadoctor Pick 'n' Mix Clinic Package represents an economic way of allowing pharmacies to offer their patients multiple services which are not necessarily all within the same area of healthcare. The pharmacy becomes a unique clinic, catering directly to the specific needs of its community.

Flu jab

Most pharmacies now offer a seasonal flu jab service, with millions of flu vaccinations administered by pharmacists across the UK each year.

With pharmacists seeing hundreds and sometimes thousands of patients during the flu season, not only is the service vital to ensure the protection of huge parts of the population against the potentially fatal virus, it also represents an opportunity to further the awareness among the public of how pharmacies are changing from traditional dispensaries to become focussed on more clinical services.

Seasonal health

By signing up to the Pharmadoctor Seasonal Health Clinic Package you'll be able to help your patients stave off all manner of conditions, from colds and flu in the depths of winter through to hay fever relief in pollen season.

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.

Women’s health

HPV, period delay, UTIs (urinary tract infections), contraception and a whole host of other clinical areas. Women’s health covers a huge variety of issues and you can help your customers with all of them by running a women's health clinic.

Meningitis ACWY

Many of your customers could benefit from a convenient, in pharmacy meningitis ACWY vaccination service. Anyone who books a trip to Saudi Arabia for Hajj/Umrah, or for any other reason, needs to provide proof of a meningitis ACWY vaccination to be allowed into the country. This vaccination is not covered on the NHS, so Muslim pilgrims travelling to Saudi for pilgrimage need to obtain the vaccine privately.

Teenagers and new university students are also at a higher risk of meningococcal ACWY infection because many of them mix closely with lots of new people, some of whom may unknowingly carry the meningococcal bacteria at the back of their noses and throats. As a result, students routinely look to get the jab before heading off to university.

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.

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.