Common Conditions Service for the Pharmacy Team

Overview

The Common Conditions Service (CCS) will further enable patients to receive advice and treatment for common conditions in pharmacies. The CCS will be available in over 1,800 (94%) participating pharmacies across Ireland by 31 March 2026. Pharmacists can now prescribe certain prescription-only medicines for a range of 8 common conditions through established clinical protocols. The eight common conditions are:

• Allergic rhinitis
• Cold sores
• Conjunctivitis
• Impetigo
• Oral thrush (mouth thrush)
• Shingles
• Uncomplicated urinary tract infections (UTIs)/Cystitis
• Vulvovaginal thrush

 

The extended pharmacy team, including MCA, OTC staff and Pharmacy technicians play a vital role in informing patients about the service, initial patient assessment and when necessary onward referral to the pharmacist for provision of the CCS.

To ensure the effective provision of the CCS and information on the CCS to patients, the IPU have developed a suite of resources for pharmacy teams. These are available on the Common Conditions Service Hub.

Course Content

The aim of this course is to provide an overview of the CCS.  It will describe how patients may access the service, conditions covered and your role in referring patients to your pharmacist for the CCS. Signposting to other useful resources for the pharmacy team will also be provided.

At the end of this course, you will be able to

• Identify conditions covered by the CCS
• Describe the CCS processes and all potential outcomes
• Describe your role in informing patients about the CCS
• Outline your role in the identification of a condition in the CCS
• Know where to access additional information/resources as required.

 

Course Delivery and Methodology

This eLearning course has been designed to engage the learner using interactive on-screen content and an assessment. The main purpose of this eLearning course is to provide the learner with knowledge about their role in CCS in the pharmacy.  

Course Schedule

This eLearning course is available online on the IPU Professional Academy Learning Management System (LMS) and can be accessed anytime throughout the year.  

Assessment

Learners, who complete the course Presentation and pass the assessment, will receive an IPU Professional Academy Certificate of Completion.  

Course Fee

This course is for staff working in IPU member pharmacies and this course is free of charge.  

How to Enrol and Pay

1. Go to www.ipu.ie.
2. In the top menu, click on “IPU Professional Academy” and then select Training Courses.
3. If you want to browse first, just click View Course to read the details.
4. From the Training Courses page, you can add courses to a shopping cart by hovering over the course you want and clicking Add to Cart. You will be able to increase the quantity at the Checkout point. You can continue adding other courses to the cart, or when you are done, click View basket on the last course you added, or, if you are viewing a course, click on the basket icon in the right-hand corner and click View Basket.
5. From here, you can increase the quantity but make sure to click Update Basket if you do so.
6. Please, make sure you click on the green button ”Members Login” and log on if you are a member, so the system will show the member price.
7. Click Proceed to Checkout when you are happy with your booking (s) and enter your billing and pharmacist details.
8. You can then scroll down to enter the student details. For example, if you are intending on booking one student on one course and then two students on to a different course, you will see three student bookings appear in the Checkout, since you are booking three slots. The name of the course (s) you have selected will appear at the top of each slot so you can enter the details of the appropriate student to the selected course. You would then repeat the same for the next two student slots.
9. After entering all the required information, enter your card details and click Place Order to pay for all of the bookings in one go. This eLearning course is available to purchase 24/7 and is placed on the IPU Professional Academy Learning Management System (LMS).