Updated 14 March 2023
Lloyds Pharmacy Clinical Homecare provides care to more than 100,000 patients, throughout the United Kingdom, in their own homes, places of work and in the community.
The service provides medicines to adults and children to meet their individual needs based on their prescriptions, delivers medicine for patients to administer at home and provides specialist nursing for people with complex conditions in their own homes.
The service had developed a Remote Nurse Training service for patients with long-term conditions and enabled them, through telephone training, to self-inject their ongoing subcutaneous treatments. This had facilitated greater independence for patients and reduced the risk of transmission of the COVID-19 virus to a patient group that were considered vulnerable. With a success rate of 99%, the training programme was rolled out nationally across 13 different biological therapies. As a secondary effect, the Homecare nurses had seen improvements in their working day travel time which had improved capacity to spend more time caring for patients that needed more input and support. The service was a finalist in the Nursing Times Awards 2020 in the category of Managing Long-term Conditions.
The service described the treatment they provided as high, mid and low-tech therapies. Patients who received high tech therapies were prioritised for treatment due to the complexity and risk of deterioration if they did not receive their treatments. The frequency of treatment for patients varied and depended on the type of therapy required for the condition. Some therapies were required daily whereas others were required on a weekly or monthly basis.
The therapies provided were:
Cancer Therapies
Enzyme Replacement Therapy
Growth Hormone
Home Parenteral Nutrition
IV Antibiotics
IVIG
Oral Immunosuppressants
Biological therapies
The conditions treated were:
Crohn’s Disease
Cancer
Cystic Fibrosis
Dermatological Conditions
Haemophilia
Hepatitis
HIV
Intestinal failure
Motor Neurone
Multiple Sclerosis
Osteoporosis
Parkinson’s
Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension
Renal Anaemia
Rheumatoid Arthritis
Thalassemia
The service had several departments dealing with different elements of the service. This included patient services who managed inbound and outbound calls from and to patients. The compounding department managed medication which was made for individuals according to their prescription and needs. There was the pharmacy and prescription processing department where prescriptions were managed, and medicines dispensed and checked. The service had a nurse scheduling team who managed the nurse rotas and schedules and the nursing team who visited patients at home to administer treatment.
The service is registered with the Care Quality Commission for the below regulated activities:
- Treatment of disease, disorder or injury
For this inspection we focused on nursing care as this relates to the regulated activity, Treatment of Disease, Disorder or Injury. This is the regulated activity monitored by the Care Quality Commission.
The service had mobile units in Surrey for oncology healthcare centres and infusion centres where oncology treatment was delivered to referred patients. However, for this inspection, we did not visit them.
The service reported at board level to the parent company, Hallo Healthcare Group. They worked with the National Health Service, pharmaceutical companies, private medical insurers and consultants.
The service has a registered manager and a nominated individual.