Pharmacy Care Record & Non CMS Registered Complex Patients
The Scottish Government Circular PCA(P)(2013)21, requires that pharmacies identify patients classified as
having complex dispensing requirements. It is not necessary for these patients to be registered for CMS.
If the patients are not registered for CMS there is no requirement for the patients to be marked as ‘Initial
Assessment Completed’ in PCR within 3 months of registration. It has been highlighted that pharmacies
may have issues identifying which patients require to have CMS Initial Assessment Completed set using the
existing PCR ‘patient report for associated pharmacy’.
PCR does not have a mechanism to identify patients who do not require to have a CMS initial assessment
completed (this will be considered for a future release of PCR software) and therefore the ‘patient report for
associated pharmacy’ cannot differentiate on that basis. In the interim the following approach can be used
to identify patients who do not require to have a CMS initial assessment completed.
Process summary:
Where a complex dispensing patient PCR record is being created and the patient is NOT CMS registered
(and therefore no requirement to have CMS initial assessment completed) record the PCP priority as
‘Currently Not Required’ and use this to identify these patients in the ‘patient report for associated
pharmacy’.
The steps required to complete are described in detail below
1) Set the PCP priority to ‘Currently Not Required’
2) Run the ‘patient report for associated pharmacy’ where ‘Initial Assessment Completed’ is set to ‘No’
How to Set the Currently Not Required PCP Priority for a Complex Dispensing Patient
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Step 1: Create a PCR record for the patient or select the relevant patient in PCR
Step 2: In the ‘Patient Profile’ section within the Pharmaceutical Care Plan tab select ‘review/Edit link
at the bottom right-hand side. The patient Profile Edit screen is displayed.
Step 3: Scroll down to the bottom of the edit screen to display the ‘Complex dispensing patient’
and ‘Pharmaceutical care plan priority’ sections, Figure 1.
Step 4: Choose ‘Yes’ for Complex Dispensing Patient’ and identify one or more reason that
contributes to the patient being classified as a complex dispensing patient.
Figure 1
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Step 5: Select ‘Currently Not Required’ from the PCP priority dropdown box, Figure 2.
Select ‘Currently
not required’
Save Changes
Figure 2
IMPORTANT: you must ensure that ‘Initial Assessment Complete’ checkbox is unchecked (Not
selected).
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Step 6: Select ‘Save’ button. (Returns to the patient profile (read only) screen.
Identifying CMS Patients who are not marked as Initial Assessment Completed
These reports are only accurate if the use of the PCP Status ‘Currently Not Required’ is used to identify
Complex Dispensing Patients who are not CMS registered.
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Step 1: Select Reports Menu
Step 2: Select ‘Patient report for Associated Pharmacy’
Step 3: Select ‘All’ for PCP Priority, ‘All’ for the Care Issues Recorded option and ‘No’ for the Initial
Assessment Completed option
Figure 3
Figure 4
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Step 4: Generate the report
The report will show all the patients that have not had the initial assessment completed. If the above
process has been followed then those patients with a PCP priority of ‘Current Not Required’ do not need an
initial assessment completed as they are not CMS registered.
Note 1: Before adopting this process it is recommended that you establish whether there are any PCR
records with a PCP priority set to ‘Currently Not Required’ (and initial assessment completed set to ‘No’) –
use the patient report for associated pharmacy to do this. If there are patient records in this status and the
patient is CMS registered then consider completing the initial assessment.
[A query on the PCR dataset showed only 82 records nationally with PCP Priority set to ‘Currently Not
Required’ and Initial Assessment Completed set to ‘No’.