As details about the New Medicine Service (NMS) emerge (see the PSNC website for an outline service specification), we know a little bit more about what the intervention will actually involve. Pharmacists will use a semi-structured interview to assess adherence, identify problems and the patient’s need for further information and support.

Communication then is key, and perhaps now is the time to start reflecting on your own skills in this area. How are you at putting questions to patients – do you use an appropriate mix of open and closed questions? What about listening skills? And how do you go about ensuring that the patient is involved in making decisions about their treatment?

Have you spotted anything that needs addressing? Got a plan but don’t know where to go to take action? Why not log-in or register to CPDEasy.com, where you’ll find a world of content and CPD tools that will help you to take action so you can hit the ground running when the NMS kicks in.

Details about the plans for targeted MURs are slowly emerging. Under the proposed plans, at least 70% of MURs will need to be for people in target MUR groups. The target groups that have been identified are as follows:

• Patients taking high risk medicines (as defined by a national list which is yet to be published)
• Patients recently discharged from hospital who have had changes to their medicines while there
• Patients with respiratory disease.

Does any of this make you feel like you need to make a CPD entry starting at reflection? Perhaps it is simply an entry on getting to know the requirements of targeted MURs, or perhaps it is a more clinically-oriented entry around respiratory disease. Either way, don’t delay. Start an entry today!!

A recent survey has identified worms, haemorrhoids, flatulence, incontinence and body odour as the top five conditions that people are too embarrassed to talk to a healthcare professional about.

We don’t always sto pto think about our own communication skills and how we interact with patients, and probably not with a focus on these sorts of conditions. This piece of information certainly got us reflecting on that though, so maybe this is a good subject for CPD.

We all know the CPD cycle by now, and that a CPD entry can start at any point of the cycle. Good recording practice has always dictated that of the 9-a-year entries made, some should start at reflection, but the CPD rules never said that a certain number must start at reflection.

That’s likely to change following the review of the CPD framework and rules that has been carried out. The GPhC are now saying that at least three of the nine entries a year will need to start at reflection.

This seems reasonable given that we are using a CPD cycle in which reflection on practice is an integral part. GPhC figures indicate that 61% of total entries on the online CPD recording system start at reflection, so people are already reflecting on their practice. It just means that maybe some of us will need to ‘take action’ on reflection!