It’s great to see that 54% of community pharmacies who were eligible to sign up for the Walk in Consultation Service (WiCS) have now done so. If you are an eligible pharmacy who hasn’t yet signed up to deliver the service, you can still do so. All the details have been sent to the pharmacy's NHSmail on Monday 6th March 2023. Please email info@cpwy.org if you cannot find this email.

Since the service went live on 6th March, there have been over 2000 claims made. That’s 18% of the funding that was initially available. This is a fantastic start to this service so well done to all those who have started to make it a success.

Of the consultations made so far, most of them (58.5%) have resulted in advice and the sale of a medication. The medication supplied most frequently so far has been chloramphenicol 0.5% eye drops. In the first month of service delivery the majority of interventions (22.7%) were for children under the age of 13. 75% of the interventions made were by people walking into the pharmacy and requesting to speak to the pharmacist.

Please remember that to be eligible for the service members of the public must be resident within West Yorkshire. We can also tell from the data that some people who are presenting for the service are doing so because they’ve been signposted by NHS 111 or GP receptionists. Where possible please remind the local GP practices that you work alongside that they should be making referrals to the Community Pharmacist Consultation Service (CPCS) and not signposting patients. CPWY will also continue to highlight this issue at various forums where this service is discussed.

A small number of contractors have asked us if they can use the WiCS to claim for consultations that lead to the sale of EHC. We have reviewed the service specification very carefully when considering this matter and have concluded that this is NOT an appropriate use of the service. This is because the service specification is very clear that:

‘A member of the public with symptoms of minor illness may self-refer to a community pharmacy for a private, professional consultation with the pharmacist regarding their symptoms and how to manage them providing that they meet the eligibility criteria….’

Finally, for those who are participating in the service, please remember to record the data at the time of the intervention. There is no provision to make claims on the NHSBSA Manage Your Service Portal. Instead, the data just needs to be entered onto PharmOutcomes.

The data suggests that this is not happening for 8% of the consultations being made. If you leave it to the end of the week or the end of the month, you are in danger of not getting paid as once the funding has been spent, the ability to record interventions on PharmOutcomes will be removed.