Midlands Practice Pharmacy Network Pharmacist

Supporting, encouraging and empowering clinical pharmacists and pharmacy technicians working in primary care practice in the Midlands

ABOUT US

The Midlands Practice Pharmacy Network (MPPN) exists to support, encourage and empower clinical pharmacists and pharmacy technicians working in primary care practice in the Midlands.

Founded and managed by local pharmacists, the group provides opportunities for members to network, share best practice, take advantage of professional training programmes and collaborate in service evaluation, practice research and promote outcomes from pharmacists-led clinics.

Our aims are:

To help define and raise the professional role of clinical pharmacists and pharmacy technicians working in primary care in the Midlands.
To support the professional development of our members.
To clearly demonstrate and communicate the professional value of our members in clinical practice.
To bring together and foster the sharing of best practice amongst our members.
To engage with and cultivate productive relationships with professional colleagues, commissioners and other stakeholders.

The Midlands Practice Pharmacy Network is a not for profit organisation.

NEW: ASTHMA & COPD REVIEW TOOLKIT

The Asthma and COPD Audit and Review Toolkit is a simple resource designed to support practitioners in identifying those patients who will most benefit from a review without contributing unduly to practice workload burden.

Developed in partnership between the Midlands Practice Pharmacy Network and Prescribing Decision Support Ltd at Keele University, the Toolkit incorporates a search report and protocol alerts to identify asthma and COPD patients at risk of unplanned admissions and/or displaying signs of poor disease control. The patient identification criteria used are consistent with many of the risk factors highlighted by the National Review of Asthma Deaths (NRAD) and National COPD Audit Programme.

The Toolkit is FREE TO USE and available to download at https://asthmacopdtoolkit.org/.

The Toolkit is currently available for EMIS Web; a SystmOne version is to follow. (Includes installation guide.)

The development of the Toolkit and its delivery is sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline. GlaxoSmithKline was involved in scoping for the Toolkit and has reviewed the Toolkit for compliance with the ABPI Code.

NEWS

2021 WEBINARS & WORKSHOPS

Following the postponement of all workshops in 2020, the MPPN will be running a series of educational webinars for its members during the first quarter of 2021. During January and February we will run two sessions:

Managing Asthma Remotely During COVID-19 and Beyond. Thursday 21st January 2021. 7:30 - 8:20pm
Managing COPD Remotely During COVID-19 and Beyond. Wednesday 3rd February 2021. 7:30 - 8:20pm

For more information please click here.

Both webinars will feature presentations by Beverley Bostock-Cox. Bev is an Advanced Nurse Practitioner and Editor in Chief at Practice Nurse Journal. She has both clinical and academic roles, combining her work as a nurse practitioner at Mann Cottage Surgery in the Cotswolds with her role as a national respiratory, diabetes and CVD educator. As a nurse prescriber Bev has a particular interest in the pharmacological management of long-term conditions. Bev enjoys writing and does so extensively, as well as reviewing publications for a range of journals. Bev is ARNS lead for asthma, the nurse committee member for the Primary Care Cardiovascular Society and a member of the Policy Forum of the Primary Care Respiratory Society.

To register your place to attend either one or both of these webinars please email me at simon@pds-keele.co.uk.

This meeting is supported by Chiesi who have no influence over choice of speakers or agenda items. This is a non-promotional educational webinar.

On behalf of the committee I would once again like to thank you for your continued support throughout this difficult period; hopefully 2021 will see the return of a more active programme of MPPN workshops.

WHAT WE DO

TRAINING & PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

A key aim of the MPPN is to support the professional development of our members - particularly those who are exclusively contracted to general practice and may not have routine access to centrally provided training programmes.
The topics covered are driven by the needs of our membership. Each member has the opportunity to identify which areas of professional development they are most interested in and we do our best to deliver training on the most popular topics. Since our first workshop in November 2017 we have run eleven 'free' events including "Understanding and Interpreting Biochemical and Haematological Tests", "Essential Dermatology - Everyday Skin Management for Primary Care", "ENT & Respiratory Assessment", "Paediatric Assessment" and "Flu Vaccination".
If you have any suggestions for future training and would like to offer support in organising our workshops please do get in touch.

Get In Touch

RESEARCH & SERVICE EVALUATION

We believe it's important to understand, define and raise the profile of the practice pharmacist's and pharmacy technician's role. In order to illustrate and communicate the professional value of our members in clinical practice we are always on the lookout for research and service evaluation projects that demonstrate an impact on patient care, colleagues' workload and meaningful outcomes.

With support from Keele University, we have already published an 'Evaluation of a pharmacist-led telephone triage service in a GP Practice' (Journal of Pharmacy Practice, 25 (S2). pp. 7-43) and results from an audit of the management of sore throat by a pharmacist prescriber have been presented. Ongoing work includes evaluating the impact of pharmacist-led diabetes clinics in the Midlands and a survey amongst members to better understand their professional opinions and experiences.

If you have any ideas for evaluation projects that relate to the role of pharmacists and technicians in practice we would welcome your suggestions.

Get In Touch

HOW TO JOIN

MEMBERSHIP

We currently have approximately 160 registered members of the MPPN.

Membership is open to clinical pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in the Midlands region of the UK who:
• are directly employed or contracted with a general practice, CCG or PCN. And/or
• have an IP qualification or are actively working towards an IP qualification and are actively considering a role working in general practice

(Pharmacy technicians not currently employed or contracted with a general practice but who are actively considering a role in general practice are also eligible for membership.) Applicants may be asked to provide supporting evidence.

Please email the completed form to Bev Cartledge at bev@mppn.org.uk.
Membership is £25 for 12 months and payment can be made electronically to the Midlands Practice Pharmacy Network at the Royal Bank of Scotland. Sort Code 83-04-25 Account 19314867.

Members’ personal data will not be shared with any third parties and will only be used to support MPPN activities and processes (for example, circulation of materials and invitations to events) and to comply with legal and good governance obligations.

Download application form

COMMITTEE, CONSTITUTION & SPONSORSHIP

COMMITTEE

Chair, Bharat Patel, Clinical Pharmacist, Rushall Medical Centre
Vice-Chair, Hemant Patel, Clinical Pharmacist, Umbrella Group

The MPPN Committee comprises 7 members: a Chair, Vice-Chair, Secretary and professional leads who take responsibility for areas such as training, service evaluation and membership. We meet every two months.
All members are invited to submit agenda items for discussion and we welcome approaches from any member who wishes to join the Committee.

Contact Committee

CONSTITUTION

The MPPN is an unincorporated, not-for-profit association. Our constitution sets out a series of agreed rules for the management and operation of the MPPN.

Constitution

SPONSORSHIP

The MPPN welcomes appropriate sponsorship and joint working opportunities with commercial organisations such as pharmaceutical companies.

We will work with commercial organisations where the proposed relationship and/or activity being supported:

is consistent with the our professional aims and our principles regarding integrity, independence and transparency
has been approved in advance in accordance with the MPPN's internal assessment processes

To date, we have received support from several pharmaceutical companies who have had exhibition stand space at our training workshops. This enables us to provide training free-of-charge to our members. None of the companies have had any input into the content of the programmes; and have had no involvement in choosing, briefing or paying the speakers.