Purpose

Patient Group Directions (PGDs) enable pharmacists to provide medicines and vaccines privately to support a wide range of patient groups and conditions. The NPA offers vaccination training and PGDs through our partnerships at very competitive rates on an extensive range of flu, travel, vaccination and non-vaccination/clinical (formerly oral/topical) PGDs.

Outcomes

PGDs enable pharmacists to supply and administer specified medicines to pre-defined groups of patients without a prescription as part of service delivery eg private flu vaccination.

Benefits to your business from offering services:

• Increases your footfall and your revenue streams
• Drives repeat demand
• Provides the pharmacist with additional skill-set
• Improves the visibility of your business in the local community profile
• Develops your potential market

Services are good for your patients and customers as:

• Community pharmacies are highly accessible
• They have the assurance of being offered advice, medication and/or vaccination by a trained, accredited and trusted front-line healthcare professional
• Your service is convenient
• You may offer out-of-hours access due to extended opening hours

Suitability

The PGD packages are suitable for any pharmacist wishing to support a wide range of patient groups and conditions.

The vaccination training is open to all healthcare professionals who, on completion of the training, can vaccinate patients via the appropriate legal routes, other than a PGD.

Delivery

This year we are pleased to partner again with ECG Training, who will enrol pharmacists and other healthcare professionals, take payment and deliver the online training and full practical training (if required) as well as certificates. The training delivered includes:

a) Full practical face-to-face (F2F) training – which is required for all new vaccinators. 

b) Refresher (online) training – which is required for all individuals who are due for their yearly refresher training.

ECG also offers other online training courses that can help support services.

eTools and service packages to support service delivery can also be purchased directly from Pharmadoctor.

Assessment

Pharmacists are required to complete a multiple-choice question assessment at the end of the online training. Trainers will also assess practical skills in the face-to-face training.