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Pharmacy Care Record (PCR) Version 6.0 is now available

(30 April 2012)

PCR Version 6.0 has now been released and includes new functionality for the "New Medicine Intervention Support Tool" (NMIST). The aim of NMIST is to increase patient adherence to new medicines prescribed to treat long term conditions.

PCR version 6.0 also includes:

New Medicine Intervention Support Tool Reports
Yellow Card link on high level menu
Wildcard search on CHI - Search for a patient using all or part of a CHI number

Pharmacy Care Record (PCR) User Guide

A new PCR user guide for version 6 has been produced that combines and supersedes all previous PCR user guides and user guide addenda.

The user guide covers the following areas:

Associating with a pharmacy and logging in to PCR
Create and search for a patient record
Create a pharmaceutical care assessment and/or care plan
High Risk Medicine Care Risk Assessments
New Medicine Intervention Support Tool
PMR to PCR Interface
Other support functions available in PCR

It also contains test cases and suggested answers which you can use to help you familiarise yourself with the PCR application.

Review of NHS Pharmaceutical Care of Patients in the Community in Scotland – Evidence Gathering Exercise

(17 April 2012)

Your opportunity to help determine the future role of pharmacists in delivering NHS healthcare in Scotland

Don’t miss your opportunity to take part!!

As you may already know, the Review of NHS Pharmaceutical Care of Patients in the Community is taking evidence from a wide range of stakeholders to enhance the clinical role which pharmacists play in contributing to the healthcare of patients in the NHS, and encourage closer working between GPs and pharmacists.

The Review, led by Dr Hamish Wilson and Professor Nick Barber (University College London), was announced last October by Nicola Sturgeon the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Cities Strategy.

The review will contribute to the future shape of NHS pharmaceutical care to patients and to achieving the sustainable, high quality healthcare we are committed to, and to ensure that evolving models of pharmaceutical care services are fit for a modern NHS in the 21st Century.

Importantly, individual pharmacists (as well as key stakeholders) are invited to use this opportunity to contribute their views, and input into how pharmaceutical care should be shaped within the NHS in Scotland over the next 10 years.

Don’t miss your opportunity to take part by completing the online survey questionnaire. The survey questionnaire should be completed no later than Friday 4th May 2012.

For further information about the review, you can e-mail:- reviewofnhspharmaceuticalcare@scotland.gsi.gov.uk.

Enquiries can also be made to Elaine Muirhead at the Scottish Government by telephone at 0131 244 3433.

Please do not score out barcodes

(16 April 2012)

It has come to PSD’s attention that a number of Pharmacies are scoring out barcodes for a number of reasons. It should be understood that the only reason PSD has ever documented that a barcode may be scored out is when an item has not been collected, an electronic claim for the item has already been submitted, and it is outwith the 14 day period for electronically amending the claim. In all other cases the CP should not score out the barcode as it inhibits PSD from retrieving the electronic prescribe message as well as the CP claim message.

Recently PSD have found that some Pharmacies are scoring out barcodes in order to force the paper prescription form to be viewed by a keyer because they are marking ZD on the form against one or more items because they cannot see how to apply ZD electronically. ZD is not a valid endorsement, which is why it is not available through the PMR system. When written on the prescription form against a normal on-file item it has no effect on reimbursement. The discount status of all drugs is held on file and that is what is applied regardless of whether the CP has procured the item at a discount or not.

Drug reimbursement and discount rates are negotiated between CPS and the Scottish Government and PSD pays according to the agreed rules and tariff. Please do not score out barcodes as regardless of whether a claim is automated or processed by keyer, the payment will be the same. When PSD’s automated processing system cannot determine the priceable item from the electronic message the claim is passed to a keyer to determine the priceable item from the paper prescription form.

If there are situations where you think you need to score out the barcode please contact the PSD ePharmacy Helpdesk to discuss and explain why, and PSD will provide advice on how to avoid the need to score out the barcode.

Items in Short Supply - April 2012

(10 April 2012)

The list of Items agreed with the Scottish Government as shortages for April 2012 are published on the Scottish Drug Tariff section of Information Services' Division website.

New National Home Oxygen Service

(28 March 2012)

Health Facilities Scotland is working with local NHS Boards and stakeholder groups to set up a National Home Oxygen service over the course of 2012. From later this year, Dolby Medical will provide regular oxygen supplies and equipment direct to patients’ homes, managed as part of a national service.

The service aims to ensure patients are receiving the most appropriate therapy and to ensure best value for money.

At the moment, NHS Boards are reviewing their oxygen patients to ensure that they are receiving the most appropriate therapy. New equipment and technology can provide a more convenient and cost-effective solution for servicing the needs of patients.

Chairman of the national project steering group, Dr. Angus Cameron, said:

“Health Boards across Scotland are currently reviewing patients in primary and secondary care to ensure that they are provided with the most appropriate oxygen system. As a direct result of this, a large number of patients are being assessed by respiratory specialists and are now being transferred to concentrators and HomeFill systems. These will be provided directly to patients by our supplier.

“We are currently working with other stakeholders and the Scottish Government to establish a timetable for the change, which will be phased across the country to minimise disruption. It is the intention of the project team, including your local NHS Board, to keep you up to date on the progress of the project.

“We realise that you may have questions about the changes. Local arrangements will be up to each NHS Board, but we want to keep people informed of the national picture as it develops.”

For more local information, contact your local NHS Board or for information about the national position, check the Health Facilities Scotland website.

Accuracy of Quality & Efficiency eClaim Reporting

(22 March 2012)

Practitioner Services (PSD) has had a number of contractor queries over recent months on the accuracy of electronic claim reporting, with some contractors being convinced that their claim rate was being under-reported. We have investigated these concerns and have found a cause that has been rectified from the start of processing of February dispensing month. As a result of this investigation, it has become clear that 140 different contractors each month had a portion of their electronic claims ignored each processing month and their eClaim percentage would have been under-reported by typically 20 to 30%.

The cause was as follows. PSD randomly selects 140 contractors per month for payment checking. The process followed meant that for these contractors a number of forms were being scanned before the eClaims had arrived at PSD. Click here for full details.

The resolution to this issue is to process the random sampled CPs in our normal fashion, which means no paper scripts are scanned until all the eClaim messages have arrived at PSD. This process has been put in place for the start of scanning prescriptions dispensed during February.

The impact on contractors was an under reporting of eClaim levels for up to 140 contractors per month. There will have been no financial impact on the Q&E payment as this was protected for claims up to December 2011 dispensing month, with all contractors receiving the full amount. For January dispensing the incorrect claim percentages would have affected payments based on the January claim level. To avoid this, Scottish Government will issue an amendment to the relevant Circular to delay the introduction of eClaim based Q&E payments to eClaim levels from 1st February 2012. From February dispensing onwards the reported eClaim percentage will be correct due to the resolution described above.

If any contractor is concerned about their reported eClaim levels, please call the ePharmacy helpdesk on 0131 275 6600 to discuss further.

Additional Items Automated for March 2012

(29th February 2012)

The following additional items have been added to the list of items that will be automated by PSD from 1st March 2012.

We first introduced automation from 1st February 2010, with an initial list of 80 items. Working closely with Community Pharmacy Scotland (CPS), we have added additional items every month to the full list of medicines that have the potential to be automated from the electronic claim message rather than from the paper prescription. The March 2012 list of 7416 items covers 96% of items dispensed under AMS. (the remaining 4% are non-drugs such as appliances, food products, dressings, ACBS, etc, but are represented by a further 5,500 unique items). The only drugs not on the automation list are Methadone and Paracetamol & Co-codamol caplets. The reason the Paracetamol & Co-codamol caplets are not on the automation list is because they share the same dm+d code as the tablet form, but in Scotland are paid at a different price. These continue to be processed by keying staff.

Pharmacists are reminded that applying electronic endorsements is essential for endorsements that impact payment, in particular Instalment Dispensing endorsement (IRX) should be added (when relevant) to the electronic claim as well as being noted on the paper prescription.

Online Reporting Update

(8 February 2012)

Practitioner Services have received very positive feedback from our regular Online Reporting users and have acted upon suggestions to make the reports more user friendly. Below is a summary of the changes that have been made:-

Latest Month Reporting – this is a new addition to the set of online reports. This will enable you to choose a report that will automatically return data for the most current month. This removes the requirement for you to enter the month & year prompts. To enable you to report on a month other than the latest month, the original reports with the prompts will still exist alongside the latest month report.
Quality & Efficiency Report – this is a new report that details the level of electronic claiming being achieved by the pharmacy.
An Online Reporting Quick Guide & Summary of Reports has been produced to help you determine the report you look at to retrieve relevant information. For example, if you wish to see your Out of Pocket Expenses, the Online Reporting Quick Guide will direct you to the Dummy Item Report in the first instance.
Independent pharmacy contractors in Scotland - 43% have access set up to view their reports online.
Pharmacy Multiples – Online Reporting demonstrations are being presented to the Multiples with deployment planned for Spring 2012.