pharmacy

CPD MODULE
Reflection exercise 2
With your team, look at the table on page iv showing
the expected duration of a sore throat, common cold,
sinusitis and cough/bronchitis. How similar/different
are these to your current practice and how might this
information affect your decisions about when to refer
someone to their GP? How would you explain the
expected duration to a customer?
• Avoiding smoking or being in smoke-filled
environments.
‘Red flags’ which indicate when to refer to the
GP practice include:
• Persistent raised temperature (39°C and
above) for longer than three days
• Severe headache with vomiting or severe
earache
• Coughing blood/blood stained mucus on
more than one occasion
• Chest pain
• Difficulty in breathing or swallowing
• Unusual skin rash
• Confusion, slurred speech, drowsiness.
Treating your infection
Back-up antibiotic prescription to be collected after days only if you do not feel better or you feel worse.
Collect from: GP reception GP or nurse Pharmacy
Figure 4: ‘Treating your infection’ information leaflet
Patient Name
Your infection
Usually
lasts
Middle-ear infection 4 days Have plenty of rest.
Sore throat
Common cold
Sinusitis
Cough or bronchitis
Other infection:
7 days
10 days
18 days
3 weeks
............................. ....... days
How to treat yourself better for
these infections, now and next time
Drink enough fluids to avoid feeling thirsty.
Ask your local pharmacist to recommend
medicines to help your symptoms or pain
(or both).
Fever is a sign the body is fighting the
infection and usually gets better by itself in
most cases. You can use paracetamol
(or ibuprofen) if you or your child are
uncomfortable as a result of a fever.
Use a tissue and wash your hands well to
help prevent spread of your infection to
your family, friends and others you meet.
Other things you can do suggested by GP
or nurse:
.....................................................
.....................................................
Your doctor or nurse recommends that you self-care
When should you get help:
Contact your GP practice or contact NHS 111 (England), NHS 24 (Scotland dial
111), or NHS Direct (Wales dial 0845 4647)
1. to 8. are possible signs of serious illness and should be assessed urgently.
Phone for advice if you are not sure how urgent the symptoms are.
1. If you develop a severe headache and are sick.
2. If your skin is very cold or has a strange colour, or you develop an unusual rash.
3. If you feel confused or have slurred speech or are very drowsy.
4. If you have difficulty breathing. Signs that suggest breathing problems can include:
o breathing quickly
o turning blue around the lips and the skin below the mouth
o skin between or above the ribs getting sucked or pulled in with every breath.
5. If you develop chest pain.
6. If you have difficulty swallowing or are drooling.
7. If you cough up blood.
8. If you are feeling a lot worse.
Less serious signs that can usually wait until the next available GP appointment:
9. If you are not improving by the time given in the ‘Usually lasts’ column.
10. In children with middle-ear infection: if fluid is coming out of their ears or if they have
new deafness.
11. Other …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Colds, most coughs, sinusitis, ear infections, sore throats, and other infections often get better without antibiotics, as your body can usually fight these infections on its own.
If you take antibiotics when you don’t need them, it allows bacteria to build up resistance. This means, they’re less likely to work in the future, when you really might need them.
Antibiotics can cause side effects such as rashes, thrush, stomach pains, diarrhoea, reactions to sunlight, other symptoms, or being sick if you drink alcohol with metronidazole.
Never share antibiotics and always return any unused antibiotics to a pharmacy for safe disposal
Key resources
There are a number of key resources available to
help ensure patients with self-limiting infections
receive consistent messages from GPs, nurses
and pharmacists.
The TARGET antibiotics toolkit is the national
antimicrobial stewardship toolkit for primary
care, which was developed by Public Health
England in collaboration with the Royal College
of General Practitioners and several other
professional bodies. TARGET stands for: Treat
Antibiotics Responsibly, Guidance, Education,
Tools. It is a central resource designed to be
used by the whole primary care team, with
a focus on safe, effective, appropriate and
responsible antibiotic prescribing.
The toolkit includes a patient information
leaflet, ‘Treating your infection’ (see Figure 4).
This leaflet can be used during consultations
and given to patients to explain why they have
not been prescribed antibiotics. The leaflet
outlines the usual duration of common viral
infections and self-care advice. Information on
why antibiotics should only be taken when they
are really needed is also provided. Initially
developed for GP practices, the leaflet has been
adapted for use within community pharmacy
and is freely available via the Royal College of
General Practitioners website (www.rcgp.org.
uk/clinical-and-research/target-antibioticstoolkit.aspx).
A booklet ‘When Should I Worry?’, developed
by researchers at Cardiff University, is another
very useful resource. It provides information for
parents about the management of respiratory
tract infections (coughs, colds, sore throats and
ear ache) in children, and has been designed for
use in primary care consultations. The booklet
covers the usual expected duration of these
infections, self-care advice and when a doctor
should be consulted. Information can be found
at whenshouldiworry.com. The PDF is freely
available to download and colour glossy booklets
(in bundles of 50) are available through the RCGP
bookshop (currently £11 for 50).
Clinical scores for sore throat
FeverPAIN and Centor criteria are two clinical
scoring systems used by GPs to determine which
patients presenting with sore throats should
receive an antibiotic. While antibiotics are
unnecessary in the majority of patients
Leaflet developed in collaboration with these professional societies.
presenting with acute sore throat, whether the
sore throat is because of streptococcal or viral
infection, it is important to be aware that sore
throat may also represent a more serious
bacterial infection caused most commonly
by group-B haemolytic streptococcus.
FeverPAIN is a five-item score based on one
score each if the following are present:
• Fever
• Purulence
• Attend rapidly (three days or less)
• Severely Inflamed tonsils
• No cough or coryza.
For a FeverPAIN score of 1, no antibiotics are
required, but it is important to provide the
patient with self-care advice for symptom relief.
For a FeverPAIN score of 2-3, the GP might
consider a back-up/delayed antibiotic
prescription.
For a score of _>4, an immediate antibiotic
should be considered if symptoms are severe
or a short (48 hours) delayed prescribing
strategy followed.
The FeverPAIN scoring system can be found at
https://ctu1.phc.ox.ac.uk/feverpain/index.php.
PULL OUT AND KEEP THIS CPD MODULE PLUS PRE-TEST AND POST-TEST IS ONLINE AT PHARMACYMAGAZINE.CO.UK PHARMACY MAGAZINE JUNE 2016 CPD v