A Pharmacy First consultation can begin at the counter, arrive through an NHS pathway or follow a conversation with a regular patient. If the activity is only recorded in separate notes, it is difficult to see the true workload behind the service. Knowing how to track Pharmacy First referrals properly gives pharmacy owners and teams a clearer view of demand, outcomes, staffing pressure and commercial opportunity.
The aim is not to create another administrative task. It is to make referral tracking part of the natural patient journey, then turn that information into reporting that helps the pharmacy make better decisions. Less admin. More insight. Better results.
What should be tracked for Pharmacy First referrals?
A useful tracking process follows a referral from first contact to its final outcome. That means recording more than a simple total of consultations. A high referral number may look positive, but it does not explain whether patients were eligible, whether the consultation was completed, or whether the team had to refer the patient elsewhere.
At a practical level, each Pharmacy First interaction should be identifiable by referral source, date and time, relevant service pathway, consultation status and outcome. Where your systems allow it, it is also helpful to record whether the patient was supplied with treatment, referred to another healthcare provider, or advised on self-care.
The clinical record must remain in the appropriate PMR and NHS service workflow. Your EPOS should support the operational view of the service, rather than becoming a duplicate clinical record. This distinction matters. The PMR supports safe, accurate patient care, while counter and business reporting can show the activity and demand patterns that affect the whole pharmacy.
Start with referral source
Referral source is one of the most valuable fields to track. Patients may be directed to the pharmacy through NHS 111, general practice, urgent care, another healthcare professional, a walk-in request or your own team identifying an eligible patient at the counter.
When every source is grouped together, you lose the ability to understand where the workload is coming from. Separating sources can reveal, for example, that walk-in demand rises after 5pm, while referrals from other services are concentrated earlier in the day. That helps branch managers schedule consultation cover more realistically.
It also shows where local relationships may need attention. If referrals from a nearby practice fall sharply, that may be a genuine change in patient need, or it may indicate that the pathway is not being used as expected.
Record the status, not just the appointment
A referral or patient enquiry is not always a completed Pharmacy First consultation. Patients may not attend, may be outside the service criteria, may need urgent escalation, or may choose another route.
Use clear status stages that your team can apply consistently: received or identified, booked or waiting, consultation completed, onward referral, not eligible, did not attend and cancelled. The exact labels can vary by system and local process, but the principle is the same. Each status should mean one thing only.
This avoids a common reporting problem: counting every initial contact as service activity. By distinguishing between enquiries, eligible consultations and completed outcomes, you can report the real pressure on the team without overstating delivery.
How to track Pharmacy First referrals at the counter
The counter is often where the first signal appears. A patient may ask for help with a qualifying condition, present a message from another service, or be recognised by a trained colleague as potentially suitable for Pharmacy First. If that moment is missed, the activity may never reach your operational reporting.
A pharmacy-specific EPOS workflow can prompt counter teams to identify the service opportunity and notify the pharmacist or consultation room team. The process should be quick enough that it does not slow a busy queue. A simple service prompt or referral flag is generally more effective than asking colleagues to remember a separate paper log during peak periods.
MedEpos can bring Pharmacy First activity into the same counter environment used for sales, PMR access and stock checks. For a busy community pharmacy, that gives the team a practical way to see service demand alongside the rest of the day’s work, without moving between generic retail systems.
Consistency is more important than complexity. Train every colleague on when to raise the prompt, who takes responsibility for changing the referral status, and what should happen if the pharmacist is occupied. A process that works only when the usual manager is on shift is not a dependable process.
Keep the patient journey visible
Once a referral is raised, the team needs a clear handover. The counter colleague should know whether the patient is waiting, has been asked to return, or has been directed immediately to the consultation area. The pharmacist should be able to see that a patient is waiting without relying on a verbal message that can be lost during a rush.
For pharmacies with a waiting-area display or token process, visibility can reduce repeated counter queries and give patients a more organised experience. It must be handled with discretion. Never place personal or clinical information on a public-facing screen, and keep access to patient-level information restricted to authorised colleagues.
Turn referral data into decisions
Tracking is only worthwhile if the information changes how the pharmacy operates. A weekly or monthly report should answer a small number of useful questions: How many referrals were received? Which sources produced them? How many consultations were completed? What were the main outcomes? When did demand peak?
Start by looking for patterns rather than chasing a single headline total. A branch completing fewer consultations than last month may have had fewer eligible referrals. Equally, it may have experienced staff absence, limited consultation-room availability or an unclear handover at the counter. Reporting opens the conversation, but it does not explain everything on its own.
Compare activity against staffing rotas and opening hours. If referrals consistently arrive when the pharmacist is managing prescriptions, vaccinations and a counter queue, consider whether trained team members can identify and prepare patients earlier, or whether consultation slots need protecting at particular times. The right answer depends on the branch, its local population and the mix of services already being delivered.
For multi-site groups, compare like with like. A high-footfall town-centre pharmacy will not have the same profile as a rural branch or a health-centre pharmacy. Use ratios, trends and referral sources alongside raw totals, rather than ranking sites purely by volume.
Watch outcomes and onward referrals
Outcome reporting protects against a narrow view of performance. It is reasonable for a pharmacy to have onward referrals where clinical assessment requires it. A low supply rate is not automatically poor performance, and a high supply rate is not automatically a sign of quality.
Instead, review whether outcomes are being recorded accurately and whether repeated onward referrals point to a training need, a local pathway issue or patients arriving too late in the day. This is where a short conversation between the pharmacist, manager and counter team can be more valuable than a lengthy report.
Build a routine the team will keep using
The strongest process is usually simple. Check open or waiting referrals at the start of each shift, make sure status changes are completed before close of business, and review the previous week’s activity at a regular management meeting. This keeps records current and prevents a backlog of unclassified referrals at month end.
Give one person responsibility for reviewing exceptions, but do not make that person responsible for entering every referral. Pharmacy First is a whole-team service. Counter colleagues often identify opportunities first, pharmacists make the clinical decision, and managers use the reporting to improve capacity and service delivery.
It is also worth checking the quality of the data periodically. If one colleague records walk-ins as referrals and another does not, the report will become unreliable. A brief written process, a few examples during team training and occasional spot checks are usually enough to keep everyone aligned.
Finally, keep commercial reporting separate from clinical judgement. Pharmacy First can support footfall, patient loyalty and wider service income, but the consultation must always be driven by patient need and the applicable service requirements. Good tracking helps you understand the value of the work without changing the standard of care.
A referral record should make the next right action obvious: who is waiting, what stage they are at and whether the service was completed. When the process does that reliably, your team can spend less time reconstructing the day and more time helping the next patient.