Louise Baglole, Director of Professional Services and Development joined the NPA in April 2019. Under her leadership, there have been considerable advances in the NPA’s portfolio of training programmes – please take a couple of minutes to view our video that illustrates how we have progressed.

Acting on member feedback

We have reviewed feedback provided by our members. The Learning & Development and Member Services teams have worked closely together to improve the student experience and to offer training that meets the needs of today’s community pharmacy teams.

IMPROVEMENTS to existing training

Our L&D team strives to regularly review the content and delivery of the NPA’s training courses to improve the student experience and learning outcomes. A few examples of these improvements follow:

• Changing the assessment method to multiple-choice format, which provides the student with an immediate result so there is no waiting for the assessment to be marked and the results to be despatched
• Our Delivering medicines safely and effectively Level 2 course is accredited by the GPhC meaning that it meets the changes in training requirements effective from October 2020 for any employee who delivers or collects patient prescriptions
• Foundation training (formerly Pre-registration) – we increased our face-to-face study days and deliver others virtually, as well as providing our full mock exam via our eLearning platform in line with GPhC guidance.

ENHANCED student journey and support

The Member Services and L&D teams have collaborated to improve processes, communication and materials resulting in an improved experience for the student and their supervisor:

• Guide to NPA Training – an extensive guide that provides key information on our courses – downloadable here
• Auto-enrolment onto courses – greater accuracy and GDPR compliant – with fast turnaround so your student can begin their studies swiftly
• Paper/blended courses – fresh new design and personalised with student’s name
• BTEC Diploma – students work very closely with their appointed assessor. Read how well the students feel supported on our testimonials page
• Online training progress report – this is designed to help supervisors monitor their student’s progress. A guide is downloadable here
• e-Certificates – accessible via a link sent to the student’s inbox on successful completion of the course avoiding postal delays or non-delivery. The digital certificate is portable throughout your student’s career and there are sharing options allowing your student to promote their achievement, share it with their supervisor and link to professional applications like LinkedIn.

Agility and passion    

The team of experienced L&D pharmacists that creates and delivers our courses is passionate about learning and development. Through their own continuous professional development (CPD) they understand the value and power of quality training and they draw on their own experiences to embed the learning of our students.

They are also quick to respond to changes in community pharmacy by adapting our course content or developing new training to meet our members’ needs. The NPA’s pandemic training guide and delivery of the Foundation training study days virtually for the 2020-21 cohort are recent examples of this agility.

Back to the L&D home page for details on specific courses, our Training Prospectus, training course T&Cs, etc.