By Wing Tang, RPS Head of Professional Standards
I'm delighted our RPS Professional Standards for Homecare Services have been comprehensively revised and relaunched.
The original set of standards was launched in 2013 following a Department of Health report, Homecare medicines: towards a vision of the future. This called for a new set of standards for homecare services. The standards that were developed were comprehensive in nature and extremely detailed, partly because there was nothing else available at that time, and partly because of the diligence of the writing group. The RPS agreed to host those standards. Whilst the standards met their original purpose in 2013 and later years, they were imperfect being England-centric, repetitive in some areas and complex in others. As time went by they also became outdated.
A decade later, the Homecare services landscape had changed. Homecare services had become extensive across the United Kingdom and new documentation, handbooks and guides developed by the NHS National Homecare Medicines Committee were now available to support services. This provided good opportunity to review the RPS standards.
To this end the RPS, alongside the Association of Pharmacy Technicians UK and the Pharmacy Forum of Northern Ireland, assembled a UK-multi-disciplinary steering group of homecare experts from across the NHS and homecare providers. The steering group included nursing professionals, Pharmacy Technicians and Pharmacists. RPS asked NHS South West and Central to lead the refresh on behalf of the project team.
Whilst the refresh was in progress, there has been a House of Lord’s inquiry into homecare services, and the Scottish Government has called for evidence, both of which illustrate why our newly updated professional standards for homecare services are relevant right now to everyone working within clinical homecare services.
The 2024 standards are applicable across the United Kingdom. Co-badged by the Association of Pharmacy Technicians UK and the Pharmacy Forum of Northern Ireland, they are more focussed, concise and clear about best practice in relation to clinical homecare services than ever before.
I hope they will be useful to everyone delivering clinical homecare services to ensure people receiving services at home get the care they deserve. The revised standards join RPS’ virtual ward standards in setting best practice for pharmacy services for people receiving care in the comfort of their homes.
Take a look at the RPS Professional Standards for Homecare Services.
Read more RPS blogs.