Our research and development division was established by a commission in early 2020. Voyager has a strong history of innovation, in 2008, our CEO, Mike Bereza, created the first ePGD and autonomous pharmacist-led travel clinic at Douglas Pharmacy.
Voyager Labs has been created to incubate more innovative solutions on the back of our digital paperless solution hubnet.io.
Our key priorities for 2021 include:
- Refining our Paperless pharmacy solution
- Diagnostics
- Medicines Logistics
- Medicines wholesaling (MHRA)
- Digital patient acquisition
If you would like to access our Research and Development team, please feel free to get in contact with us.
Prototypes
eCPCS Referral System
The CPCS GP referral scheme is intended for GPs to refer patients requiring treatment for minor conditions to community pharmacy. Each CPCS completed the pharmacy receives a £14 fee. pharmacies can claim a £300 engagement and setup payment if they undertake a range of actions to get ready for rolling out the referral pathway in their area by 30th June 2021.
CPCS was initially designed by the NHS before the COVID pandemic. The intention of the new services was to reduce pressure on GPs and triage minor conditions to pharmacies. Pre-COVID this was intended to physically redirect the patient from the surgery to the pharmacy. However post the beginning of COVID, a huge switch to teleconsult became the new norm.
This has led the NHS to restructure the scheme somewhat, releasing the statement:
“Patients being referred to the CPCS are now being told to phone the pharmacy and to speak to the pharmacist. Unless there is a clinical need for the patient to be seen in the pharmacy, the pharmacist can provide a consultation by telephone, as is provided for in the service specification. If the consultation is conducted in this manner, the pharmacy is eligible to claim the fee for provision of the service.”
PSNC COVID-19 Service Update, 2021
The issue then to be addressed is how can we make the CPCS referral scheme easier for GPs to access. GPs get no incentive to use the system apart from it makes it easier to manage disgruntled patients who cannot access finite GP appointments. The other issue is how to make it as user friendly as possible to a receptionist, highlighting red flag and explaining what the patient might expect.
Below is our first version of the prototype. It is meant to be used by reception staff in a GP surgery who run out of appointments and would like to book a pharmacist econsult.
The form embedded in the map performs the following:
GPs receptionists do not have any appointments and want to refer the overspill to a pharmacy.
- The receptionist navigates to hubnet.io and logs in.
- The receptionist sees the map and makes a joint decision with the patient to choose which pharmacy they would like to send the referral to.
- On behalf of the patient, the receptionist chooses which category of treatment the patient requires.
- An available appointment slot is chosen (this links directly into the pharmacies calendar to ensure it is up to date).
- An appointment is booked, a link is sent to the patient.
- At the appropriate time, a pharmacist clicks the link the appointment is carried out as per hubnet.io Standard Operating Procedures
- The appointment is completed and the CPCS can be claimed.