Pharmacy Contraception Service
Written by AlisonFreemantle on Friday 21st March 2025
Texting Patients for Ongoing Supplies from Community Pharmacy
The ICBs have identified a significant number of patients who are ONLY prescribed an oral contraception.
They are planning to send a text message via NHS systems to all these females and direct them to the Community Pharmacy of their choice for their ongoing supplies.
The ICBs are in the process of cleansing the data to ensure it is appropriate.
This is a huge opportunity for Community Pharmacy, however if community pharmacies are NOT ready to accommodate this workload for whatever reason it may damage Community Pharmacy’s reputation and jeopardise similar future projects.
If you are registered to provide the service but are yet to engage or start providing both elements of the service Ongoing supply & Initiation as required by service specification, consider the following actions:
- If you do not offer the service yet – complete any training required and register for the service before the end of March 2025. Registration is on MYS.
- Review current engagement and plan for additional training if required. Make sure all pharmacists are trained including locum pharmacists.
- Contraception initiation MUST be provided if you register to provide the service
- Review pharmacy marketing, social media, website etc.
- Make sure the whole team understand the service and is well engaged. The Virtual Outcomes training module can help support this. Virtual Outcomes
The service specification can be found here along with other supporting information: Pharmacy Contraception Service (PCS) - Community Pharmacy England