Why Use The NPA?
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.
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You can also access further information from below as to why you should consider using the NPA for your team’s training
Acting On
Member Feedback
Improvements To
Existing Training
NPA
Learning Academy
Enhanced Student
Journey Support
Agility
& Passion
NPA Learn
(CPD Hub)
Acting On 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.
New Courses
We have launched four new courses to enable community pharmacies to upskill employees and release pharmacist capacity, in line with changes within the Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework.
Programmes offering Government funded resource
We expanded our portfolio by partnering with organisations to provide programmes that support overstretched pharmacy teams with Government funded resources, and help encourage more staff into the pharmacy workforce. One example was:
- Kickstart Scheme – now closed – but it was a successful scheme that placed over 600 young people in community pharmacy for six month placements.
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.
NPA Learning Academy
Launched in 2020, the NPA’s eLearning platform offers students an engaging learning experience that is easily accessible 24/7 via multiple devices. Eleven of the NPA’s courses are already available on the Learning Academy with more planned later in 2022 and currently over 2,600 students are actively studying on the platform.
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Enhanced Student Journey Info
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 & 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.
NPA Learn (The New & Improved CPD Hub)
NPA Learn contains a library of high-quality educational e-learning modules, videos and articles to support the ongoing learning of NPA members. There is training suitable for all abilities ensuring your staff can keep up to date and develop their skills and knowledge to positively influence patient outcomes and customer experiences.
Access Here
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CSL Seqirus has provided an educational grant, and not had any input into the content, apart from ensuring that it adheres to the ABPI Code of Practice.