Training your team and ensuring everyone’s knowledge is up-to-date are important CPD triggers for you. We suggest that you get the team together for a training session based on the activities below and discuss the various ways in which you can offer customers and patients added care in this category.

Subject: Head lice

This Train Your Team checklist provides support and information to run a team training session on managing head lice in the pharmacy. This content can also be used for your own CPD.

Reflection

• Can I explain the life cycle of head lice to my assistants and how they can apply this knowledge to treatment?
• Have I read and digested the Public Health Medicine Environmental Group (PMEG) evidence-based guidelines on head lice and what they say about the role of pharmacists?
• Can I explain to a parent how to detect head lice? Can I teach the technique of detection combing?
• Can I do more to liaise with school nurses, head teachers, local general practices, health visitors and infection control nurses to ensure we are all giving the same information to patients and we can refer to one another as appropriate?
• Can I explain the correct use of head lice preparations?
• Do I know what to recommend if a customer returns saying the treatment has not worked?
• Do I know how to treat skin conditions that may occur in association with a head lice infection?

Training checklist

• Ensure support staff understand the following key points:
• Misconceptions around head lice – how they spread and how to treat them
• How to check for the presence of live head lice; the importance and technique of detection combing
• Scalp itching is not always caused by head lice; the itch develops if the person is allergic to lice
• When to recommend an appropriate treatment and how to use it
• The role of preventive products such as repellents
• Head lice treatments should not be used for prevention or “just in case”
• Why treatment can fail and what to do about it.

I will:

• Read and digest the PMEG evidence-based guidelines
• Clarify the team’s role in managing head lice
• Train my pharmacy assistants to ensure that they can meet the points in this training checklist and consider this training exercise as a possibility for inclusion in my CPD record.