Community Pharmacist Consultation Service (CPCS)
Community Pharmacist Consultation Service (CPCS)
The NHS Community Pharmacist Consultation Service launched on 29th October 2019 as an Advanced Service.
Since 1st November 2020, general practices have been able to refer patients for a minor illness consultation via CPCS, once a local referral pathway has been agreed.
Read more about the GP referral pathway
The service, which replaced the NUMSAS and DMIRS pilots, connects patients who have a minor illness or need an urgent supply of a medicine with a community pharmacy.
As well as referrals from general practices, the service takes referrals to community pharmacy from NHS 111 (and NHS 111 online for requests for urgent supply), Integrated Urgent Care Clinical Assessment Services and in some cases patients referred via the 999 service.
The CPCS aims to relieve pressure on the wider NHS by connecting patients with community pharmacy, which should be their first port of call and can deliver a swift, convenient and effective service to meet their needs. Since the CPCS was launched, an average of 10,500 patients per week being referred for a consultation with a pharmacist following a call to NHS 111; these are patients who might otherwise have gone to see a GP
The CPCS provides the opportunity for community pharmacy to play a bigger role than ever within the urgent care system.
Page last updated on 24th May 2022.
COVID-19
Patients being referred to the CPCS are told to phone the pharmacy and to speak to the pharmacist. Unless there is a clinical need for the patient to be seen in the pharmacy, the pharmacist can provide a consultation by telephone, as is provided for in the service specification. If the consultation is conducted in this manner, the pharmacy is eligible to claim the fee for provision of the service.
More CPCS referrals expected to community pharmacy from NHS 111
On 14th January 2022, NHSE&I announced that contractors can expect to receive more CPCS referrals from NHS 111 following a review of the NHS Pathways algorithms.
The changes introduce three new condition types (scratches and grazes, teething, sinusitis) and incorporate general health information requests. Based on NHS 111 call volumes data, these changes could generate 275,000 additional referral opportunities annually.
Click on a link below for more information.
CPCS service specification
The service specification describes the requirements for provision of the service and it is essential reading for all pharmacists providing the service.
CPCS Toolkit for pharmacy staff
The toolkit provides further information on the CPCS for pharmacy teams, including materials which can be used to brief team members on the service.
Pharmacy contractors can register to provide the service via the NHSBSA Manage Your Service (MYS) portal.
CPCS – when is it complete? v1 (July 2021)
The table sets out the range of scenarios associated with the CPCS and when a consultation within the service is complete (and hence can be included in the total number of completed CPCS claimed at the end of the month on the FP34c).
Additional resources for pharmacy teams (including learning and development)
Funding, claiming payment, statistics and post-payment verification
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
