NUMSAS – NHS National Urgent Medicine Supply Advanced Service/Online via NHS111
NUMSAS provider update March 2019
Please ensure you are aware of the latest specification
NUMSAS NHS 111 online
From August 2019 NHS111/NUMSAS in the North West will also be online. Please ensure all staff are aware that referrals will also be via this online service.
20190804 NHSE-Pharmacy-Guidance for NUMSAS pilot 111 Online referrals-v3.0-FINAL
NUMSAS ONLINE LAUNCH across the North West
5th Aug 2019
With an anticipated launch date of the middle of August, Lancashire & South Cumbria NUMSAS(NHS Urgent Medicine Supply Advanced Service) pharmacies will be able to receive referrals to NUMSAS by patients who have chosen to use NHS111 online instead of using NHS111 telephone service and you will start to see referrals from the online portal arriving in your PharmOutcomes inbox.
You will have had confirmation of this directly from NHS England week commencing 5th August, via Pharmoutcomes and email so please check your pharmacy’s NHS shared mailboxes for this information.
In the meantime, please prepare your teams with the NHS 111 guidance:20190804 NHSE-Pharmacy-Guidance for NUMSAS pilot 111 Online referrals-v3.0-FINAL and ahead of the launch see below for top tips which have kindly been shared by Community Pharmacy Cheshire and Wirral, who went live in July.
Just like the existing NUMSAS service the pharmacist is required to access the patient’s Summary Care Record (SCR) conduct a face to face consultation with the patient and the referral won’t state the medicine required by the patient, therefore it will not screen out requests for CDs or other inappropriate medicine requests.
How is this different?
When the referral arrives in PharmOutcomes, the referral will have a reference number which will enable you to locate the correct referral in your inbox when the patient presents in pharmacy.
Top tips:
- On most systems, pressing Ctrl & F within the services screen where referrals come into will let you search for that reference number to quickly locate it
- The online system does not have any way to screen out anyone with a special patient note so you will need to be more alert to possible “drug seeking behaviour”. When the patient presents in the pharmacy it is essential that you request proof of ID to ensure you are talking to the person who has made the referral. One reason for this is that the online module cannot currently single out patients with drug seeking behaviour, whereas NHS111 call handlers can, due to alerts on the system. This is no different to if the patient walked through the front doors without the service referral so please treat the referral as a request from the patient to be seen, not a request from the system to supply.
- As there is no way to switch online referrals off (different to existing telephone NUMSAS), it is essential that your pharmacy is able to meet the requirements of the SLA and offer this service 100% of the time so please make relief staff and locums aware that your pharmacy operates this service.
NHS England commissioned the NHS National Urgent Medicine Supply Advanced Service (NUMSAS) Pilot using the Pharmacy Integration Fund (PhIF), in order to reduce the burden on urgent and emergency care services of handling urgent medication requests, whilst ensuring patients have access to the medicines or appliances they need.
Service to run from 1st December 2016 to 30th September 2019
All the information regarding the NUMSAS service can be found on the PSNC website
De-registering from the Service
If you wish to de-register from the NUMSAS service then you will need to provide NHS England with one month’s advance notice by completing an NHS Urgent Medicine Supply Advanced Service Pilot Deregistration form
New NUMSAS toolkit for pharmacy staff CLICK HERE
April 12, 2018
NHS England has published an updated and shorter version of the NHS Urgent Medicine Supply Advanced Service (NUMSAS) toolkit, to reflect the extension of the service until the end of September 2018.In March 2018, NHS England also published an updated service specification and the Department of Health and Social Care issued accompanying Secretary of State Directions which came into effect on 30th March 2018.
Further information on NUMSAS can be found on the PSNC website.
For more information or FAQ visit NUMSAS