UPDATE: RA (Smartcard) services provided to community pharmacies
Written by admin on Friday 20th March 2020
It's more important than ever that staff working in pharmacies have a working smartcard. The CSU have provided guidance and FAQs here to help you
The Commissioning Support Unit (CSU) provide RA (Smartcard) services to community pharmacies
Our smartcards are looked after by the NHS South, Central & West CSU team based in Eastleigh.
In light of the current situation with COVID-19 it seems more important than ever that staff working in pharmacies have a working smartcard. The CSU have put together a Q&A guide and also a guide detailing how staff can register for online self-unlocking (providing they have an 'nhs.net' email address).
Please also share this information with others that would benefit by knowing the information.
Boots pharmacies continue to be unable to manage smartcards within their stores.
This means whenever cards needs to be unlocked or renewed - either their Area Manager needs to attend the store with their laptop that has the software on, or they need to return the smartcard to CSU for unlocking/renewing. As you can imagine this situation is very frustrating for their staff and creates a situation where some staff do not have their cards whilst they send them back to CSU. Access via Internet Explorer is being discussed with Boots, but currently this remains unavailable.
CSU are working hard to ensure that pharmacy teams have active RA cards; so that they can continue to keep working to the best of their abilities. Pharmacies being able to remotely unlock their cards is vital to keep more cards active, as well as freeing up time for the RA teams to concentrate on priority RA activities.
Michelle Wheatfill | Registration Authority Manager | IT Services
NHS South, Central and West
Smartcard Team (0300 5610429 |
Smartcard Team: scwcsu.smartcards@nhs.net
