What we do
We provide a clinical advice enquiry service to all healthcare professionals working in primary care (including community pharmacy) in England. Our specialist breastfeeding and dental advisory services also provide advice to secondary care professionals.
We also publish a suite of clinical content, horizon scanning and tools on our website, to support healthcare professionals working across all care sectors.
Our service specification provides further details on who we’re commissioned to help.
Getting in touch
Available routes for getting in touch.
Call us
Call us on 0300 770 8564 (Monday – Friday, 9am – 5pm), especially if urgent, or it helps us to understand your enquiry.
Email us
Email us at asksps.nhs@sps.direct if you have a clinical enquiry or if you have a question or comment about our clinical content.
Help us to help you
It’s helpful when you get in touch if you can describe the full details of your problem so we can offer you the best advice.
General details
Please provide us with:
- your full name
- your place of work
- your question and the background to it
- the urgency of your request
Patient-related enquiry
For questions concerning care of an individual patient, please provide additional information, such as:
- the patient’s current medication
- any relevant medical history
Patient identifiable data
We are unable to process enquiries that contain patient identifiable data. Please ensure it is removed before sending your email.
Enquiry answering service
The clinical enquiry service provides timely, evidence-informed, and tailored clinical advice on the safe and effective use of medicines.
What to expect
We provide advice on all medicines-related enquiries, including:
- medicines administration
- drug interactions
- adverse effects
- medicines in pregnancy
- medicines in breastfeeding
- medicines in renal or liver impairment
- dental care
Enquiries are answered by NHS pharmacists with specialist expertise and training in Medicines Advice.
Response time
We prioritise enquiries by clinical urgency, so response times will depend on how clinically urgent your question is. Unless requested otherwise, you can expect a response to an emailed clinical enquiry within five working days.
Before getting in touch
As part of our SPS ‘do once’ approach, we maintain and regularly publish new content to inform and upskill healthcare professionals in managing clinical scenarios. Therefore, before contacting us, please explore the site first, as you may find guidance or support materials that address your needs. Some resources which assist with commonly encountered clinical scenarios include:
Tools
Swallowing difficulties
Excipients
Breastfeeding
Complementary medicines
Switching
Deprescribing
Resources to support answering questions
- Children’s medicines: resources to support answering questions
- Contraception: resources to support answering questions
- Drug interactions: resources to support answering questions
- Palliative care: useful resources to support answering questions
- Pharmacogenomics: resources to support answering questions
- Information resources for advice on medicines and breastfeeding
- Information resources for advice about medicines in pregnancy
Where we can’t help
These are examples of queries where we are not the most appropriate service to help.
Discharge and interface questions
We are unable to answer questions relating to discharge or interface issues. Local knowledge is required, and you should contact the pharmacy at the relevant NHS Hospital Trust.
Members of the public
We are unable to respond to questions from members of the public. If you require medical advice, contact your GP or NHS 111 (dial 111 or go to 111.nhs.uk). For information on medicines or minor illness please visit www.nhs.uk or your community pharmacist.
Overdoses
We can advise healthcare professionals on less serious overdoses, such as accidental double doses. For more serious overdoses, please visit TOXBASE or call the UK National Poisons Information Service on 0344 892 0111. Members of the public can contact NHS 111 by dialling 111.
Help shape our content
Everything we do is centred around our users. We use insights from our enquiry service, feedback on current content and suggestions for new content to inform our workplan. We also welcome your suggestions and ideas for future topics by email. You can also connect with us in person at upcoming conferences.