NHS Borders Pharmacy Team supporting General Practice

Who are they?

NHS Borders has a Pharmacy Team supporting General Practice that includes:

  • Pharmacists
  • Pharmacy technicians
  • Pharmacy support staff

Please follow the link to see where each of the team members is routinely based. Please note that this is for general guidance and that these locations may vary due to annual leave/cover for other practices etc. You will see that the pharmacists and pharmacy technicians are generally working in the GP practice and the pharmacy support staffwork remotely in a hub based at the Borders General Hospital.

What do they do?

The job description for the team can be very wide ranging. At present, GP practice teams have prioritised the tasks as follows:

  • Immediate discharge letters
  • Acute prescriptions
  • Hospital outpatient requests
  • Serial prescribing queries
  • MARS sheets/instalment dispensing
  • Medicines reconciliation
  • Medicine shortages queries

As you can see from this list of tasks there will be many occasions when you, as a community pharmacist, will need to liaise with the GP practice team.

How do I link with them?

Having a good working relationship with your GP practice team members will help smooth the patient journey between the GP practice and community pharmacy. Get to know the team and their working hours and how you can help each other.

There is one single point of contact for the team. All communication should be sent to the GP practice administration inbox to then be work flowed to the pharmacy team. This is to help manage workload. If a member of the pharmacy team is not available, urgent queries will be sent to the duty GP.  Please follow the procedure outlined.

Useful resources

Delivering  the new GMS contract in Scotland: memorandum of understanding. Available at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/delivering-the-new-gms-contract-in-scotland-memorandum-of-understanding/ [accessed 13 December 2022]

2021 update to 2018 Scottish GMS contract. Available at: https://www.bma.org.uk/pay-and-contracts/contracts/gp-contract/2021-update-to-2018-scottish-gms-contract [accessed 13 December 2022]