CPPE is introducing the latest addition to its suite of gateway pages, which provides learning resources for the Digital Minor Illness Referral Service (DMIRS)

One of the new models of care set out by the NHS Five Year Forward View aimed to reduce the burden on urgent and emergency care services by appropriately managing patients who contact NHS 111 with low acuity conditions.

The Digital Minor Illness Referral Service (DMIRS) uses enhanced technology to directly refer patients to community pharmacies and their teams.

CPPE has created a gateway page to support community pharmacy professionals to provide this service safely and efficiently. The resources offer both foundation and advanced learning, with the page split into several sections.

Core and foundation learning

The core and foundation section has learning materials such as guides, videos and e-learning programmes about common minor ailments, responding to symptoms and consultation skills. Completing these learning programmes will support pharmacy professionals to build the evidence required for different competency frameworks, such as the RPS Foundation Pharmacy Framework.

Advanced learning

The advanced learning section has resources on taking an accurate history, identifying red flags and delivering a quality service, and includes guides and e-learning materials.

‘Clinical history-taking: what a good consultation looks like’ is a particularly popular programme that helps pharmacy professionals apply key tools and techniques to the clinical history-taking consultations and identify how to apply a person-centred approach in practice.

Assessments

The DMIRS gateway page has assessments to help pharmacy professionals check their progress and their ability to meet the competencies set out in certain practice standards.

There are also resources to support a team approach to service provision, a link to the CPPE’s virtual pharmacy (theLearningpharmacy.com) and various resources from other organisations.

Face-to-face workshops on clinical assessment and consultation skills can be booked through the page, which can be found on the CPPE website.