The Community Pharmacist Consultation Service (CPCS) is an NHS-funded service designed to provide you with quick and convenient access to medical advice and treatments for minor illnesses. This service has been running nationally since 2019 and is available from our practice since 2022.
When you ring our practice with a minor ailment, our receptionists or care navigators may refer you to a community pharmacy that offers CPCS services. You'll then receive a secure digital referral to the pharmacy, where a qualified pharmacist will provide you with a personal consultation, either remotely or in person.
We encourage patients to fill in online consultations for all their clinical and administrative needs. Our team of clinical triagers assess these online consultations on the same day they are submitted and allocate an appropriate clinician and appointment for them.
CPCS may be one of the pathways that your online consultations are triaged into, allowing you to receive on-the-day help. Consultation modes include remote, video, and face-to-face appointments.
Rest assured, our clinical triage team can make appointments for a wide range of conditions based on clinical appropriateness. We always have GPs on hand to provide face-to-face appointments where it is clinically appropriate.
Our services are highly innovative and align with the government's direction of being able to assess patients on the same day they have called in, reducing the need to call again.
While some patients may face technical barriers that prevent them from filling in online consultations, our staff can complete these online consultations over the phone on behalf of the patients.
We work closely with the following pharmacies to offer you the best CPCS services:
We have chosen to partner with these pharmacies because they have significant evidence of clinical governance and high-quality patient care. Additionally, we have data-sharing agreements with them, ensuring that clinicians treating patients will always have the full facts in front of them, reducing any risks.
Our relationships with these pharmacies are part of a pilot within the K&W GP Federation, which also includes West Brent K&W PCN. The pilot focuses on data sharing, aligning with the government's Primary Care Recovery Plan that promises full data sharing across all pharmacies and general practices in the UK by the end of 2023.
The above list is not an exhaustive list, and to understand further the importance of referring low acuity medical issues via CPCS, refer to this page on the definition of low acuity.
— Emily Johnson
— Raj Patel
— Fatima Al-Mansoori
— Carlos Rodriguez
— Aiden O'Reilly
— Keiko Tanaka
We're thrilled to announce that soon you'll be able to make your own referrals to our partner CPCS pharmacies. This means you can receive on-the-day care without even having to ring our practice first. Stay tuned for more updates!
