As you’ll be aware, the idea of Team Tuesday is that on the first Tuesday of the month, you get together with other members of your pharmacy team for an internal training session based around selected content of TM.

Anyone can lead these training sessions. Perhaps so far it has been the pharmacist each month. If so, why not change it up? This section aims to provide pharmacy technicians and other senior members of the pharmacy team with help in running these training sessions for the rest of the team.

Training is essential for providing a pharmacy flu vaccination service. Your role as a trainer will be to ensure that the team members understand their specific roles and are confident in playing their part. More specifically:

• Ensure that your team understands the benefits of providing a flu vaccination service in the pharmacy
• Ensure that your team knows who is and who is not eligible for a flu jab
• Identify specific roles for each person in the pharmacy team. For example, all team members could play a part in helping to identify and recruit people who are eligible for a flu jab but who have slipped the net. One team member might be responsible for paperwork, another for keeping the consulting room scrupulously clean, another for booking in people for the service and welcoming them when they arrive. Perhaps members of the team want to stick with the same role, but consider too the benefits of everyone learning all the roles
• Ensure that team members can effectively engage eligible people in the pharmacy. What questions and discussion points could team members raise? Could you adapt the WWHAM questions to help?
• Get team members to think about how they can prepare the pharmacy for the service (e.g. a note of customer eligibility on the counter, an appointment diary, a clean consulting room, stickers for prescription and counter bags, when to refer to the pharmacist)
• How will the service be promoted?
• Ensure that team members are trained in completing the paperwork. This can help a busy pharmacist get on with providing the jab
• Ensure that the pharmacy team knows how to handle any emergencies. What should be done if a patient collapses? Where is the adrenaline kept? Is there a note next to the phone on how to call an ambulance?
• Ensure that those responsible for vaccine storage know how to do this, the importance of putting vaccines in the fridge when they are delivered, the importance of checking the fridge temperature frequently and the importance of keeping a record that this procedure is being followed
• Ensure that all staff are familiar with the standard operating procedure and understand the part they play.