As the March 31 deadline approaches for contractors in England, Zoe Smeaton offers a four-step guide to what you need to do about information governance and why you don’t need to hit the panic button.

Step 1: Appoint your information governance lead

The information governance lead will be responsible for ensuring the pharmacy submits an information governance assessment (via the Connecting for Health online toolkit) by March 31.

They should have a written assignment of their responsibilities, must read through the PSNC workbook on information governance thoroughly and create a workplan for the pharmacy, and should have access to sufficient support to carry out their information governance duties. Remember that even if the information governance lead is at head office, every pharmacy branch will need someone who knows what is happening with information governance at branch level.

Top tip: The information governance responsibilities can be shared between several members of staff and these do not need to be pharmacists.

Step 2: Download the PSNC workbook

Every pharmacy needs to meet 18 information governance requirements by March 2011. The workbook takes you through all of these and this year the information governance lead will need to read through the workbook and assess where the pharmacy is for each requirement.

Top tip: If you did not receive the workbook, which was sent to pharmacies during January, you can contact PSNC on 01296 432823, or download it from www.psnc.org.uk.

Step 3: Register for the toolkit at the Connecting for Health website www.igt.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk

To submit your assessment you have to use the toolkit, for which you must register. To register you will be asked for the pharmacy’s national code, which is the ODS Code (or F code). This can be found on a pharmacy’s schedule of payments or submission document used to send scripts to NHS Prescription Services. Once you have registered you will be sent a login name and password by email.

Top tip: You can register using the same name and login email for more than one pharmacy and you don’t need an NHSmail email address.

Step 4: Log in and record the pharmacy’s level of compliance

Working through each of the 18 requirements separately, you must evaluate the pharmacy’s current position. Each requirement is graded from level zero to level three. It is fully expected that pharmacies will be at level zero in many cases, so don’t worry if you feel like you’re not doing very well. In many cases this is just because the processes the pharmacy follows are not documented, so they don’t have the evidence needed to show they are complying.

You will need to go through each requirement and say what level the pharmacy is at and what level you aim to achieve by when – remembering that you need to be at level two by March 2011.

Top tip: You can save your work as you go along, so you don’t need to complete the whole assessment in one go. You may like to complete the template workplan as you go along, filling in what rating your pharmacy has achieved and the work needed by March 2011 to support your later work on IG.

Beyond March 31

Break it down

After March you will have one year to improve your information governance standards and attain level two on the assessment. The PSNC workbook talks you through this step-by-step, but the size and complexity of the document can be daunting. You need to work through it methodically rather than leaving it all until the last minute. Numark, for example, will be breaking the task into manageable chunks, focusing on two requirements per month from April until December of this year. Or the group suggests starting with the things you will find easiest to do so you can build some momentum.

Don’t panic

Remember that when you submit your baseline assessment this year, a workplan will be automatically created for you, and you can get support from various sources. Avicenna also points out that on some of the requirements you will already be some way to meeting the required standards anyway, such as if staff contracts have clauses identifying the need for confidentiality, if you ask patients before using their personal information for anything other than the service for which it was collected, or if you have business continuity plans.

Don’t do it on your own

As well as the various pharmacy organisations you can seek help from, Numark suggests engaging your own team – delegating activities will not only help you but will also empower them to become involved and understand their own responsibilities. Also try talking to other pharmacists as you go along – you might be able to swap hints or tips to make life easier.

Where to get more help

If you work for a multiple there is likely to be internal guidance, and head office may be completing some work for you. If you get stuck, the RPSGB’s professional support team have been able to help people find the information they need.

The NPA’s information line is another option or some Numark members have asked the group for help. For Avicenna members help is available from business development managers, via telephone support from pharmacists in the office, and an upcoming Avicenna-McNeil webinar.