Training: keeping knowledge and skills up to date

There will be many day-to-day workplace situations that highlight a training or development need.

Training includes planned interventions and ad-hoc training opportunities. Planned events might include reading an article, completing a distance-learning package or attending a conference. Examples of ad-hoc occasions could result from a near-miss, a dispensing error or a patient making a complaint. Using such opportunities for CPD helps to ensure that everyone is learning from any mistakes made and working to improve the customer experience.

There will be many other examples of situations from which a training need may be highlighted. Make a note of any others to add to the following list:

• A news story or article in the national press related to medicines that needs to be researched to inform and reassure customers
• A customer asks about a condition not encountered before
• A prescription for a drug that you haven’t dispensed before
• A new OTC product is delivered with promotional or training material
• Reading a journal article that prompts further research around a subject
• Completing a quiz, such as the CPPE monthly e-challenge
• Seeing a tweet, email or Facebook post about something new. Most pharmacy organisations and magazines have active Twitter feeds
• Legislation updates
• Peer discussion or online forum discussions
• Conversations with other healthcare professionals
• A national training programme roll-out or NHS campaign
• Plans to deliver a new service, for example flu vaccination
• Newsletters and information from pharmacy bodies such as the PSNC, NPA etc
• Feedback from customer satisfaction surveys or mystery shopper programmes
• An audit
• Competency frameworks
• An appraisal highlights a development need
• Taking on a new role, such as being a preregistration tutor or a senior manager.

Whenever something prompts an idea for additional training for yourself or a member of your team, write it down quickly before it is forgotten. You may want to have a notebook handy to keep these ideas in, or if you have online access to your CPD record, you could always record the outline initially, and then add to it later. Mobile devices make this easy to do.

There will be so many occasions when you can update your knowledge or improve the way you practise, but the key is to record it and to remember to reflect on the impact it has on your pharmacy and patients.