Community pharmacies can now help travellers and holidaymakers take their Covid-19 tests before they fly out to international destinations.
The pandemic is changing the way we all live our lives and travel is one of those things – most trips abroad now require a negative Covid-19 result within 72 or 96 hours of departure, with many countries requiring a Fit to Fly certificate with a passport number on it.
Medicspot, an NPA Business Partner which provides private Covid-19 testing and GP services, has optimised its operational processes and regulatory policies, and increased capacity to offer pharmacies a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing service which provides fast turnaround times for Covid-19 tests.
Currently pharmacies selling Covid-19 PCR test kits in England are required to self-declare to the Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC) to become a private Covid-19 testing provider. The new guidelines clarify the minimum standards pharmacies are expected to meet when selling Covid tests to organisations or members of the public.
Medicspot provides an end-to-end service to manage the bulk of these requirements; giving pharmacies the ability to sell Covid-19 PCR test kits whilst meeting their governance obligations. Medicspot has developed a support tool to help NPA pharmacies that sell their testing kits to selfdeclare with DHSC. This can be found by going to: bit.ly/2OP9EbT
What is PCR testing?
A Covid-19 PCR test looks for the presence of the virus on a sample take from the nose and throat. Medicspot has partnered with a leading UKAS accredited laboratory to provide this testing to ensure fast and accurate results. If done correctly, the ability of this test to detect the virus (sensitivity) is 98 per cent and the ability of the test to correctly identify those who are not infected (specificity) is 99 per cent.
How your pharmacy benefits
Medicspot offers pharmacies an “endto- end hassle-free” solution for selling Covid-19 tests. They can help pharmacies generate additional profit without adding extra operational or customer service complexity.
NPA members who choose to provide this PCR testing service via Medicspot will also get exclusive discounts.
Rikta Desai, NPA Business Partnership Manager said: “As the front door to the NHS during this pandemic, communities pharmacies are seeing more people come through their doors than ever before.
“Our partnership with Medicspot presents a great opportunity to help holidaymakers and at the same time get started with Covid-19 testing before the market soars post-lockdown.
“We hope members value this additional revenue stream and get on-board as soon as they can.”
Additional benefits in providing the Medicspot test kits include:
- Medicspot deal with all customer support, logistics and results
- Reliable service so you don’t have unhappy customers who miss their flights
- Dedicated customer service team will save you up to 40 post-sales call a day
- Royal Mail return label included to save you posting costs
- UKAS accredited laboratories analysing your customer samples
- Free doctor consultations included for customers with positive test results
- Full confidence knowing the whole service is taken care of by Medicspot
- A small minimum order quantity so it’s easy to get started
- Revenue generator for pharmacies. Make a minimum £25 profit for every test sold (Based on matching RRP of £149)
For more information go to www.npa.co.uk/pcr-test-kits