The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 274 No 7351 p639
28 May 2005

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Pharmacy team wins regional NHS innovations award in South East

Primary care pharmacists based at Guildford and Waverley Primary Care Trust have won first prize in a regional NHS innovations competition. NHS Innovations South East aims to improve health care by helping NHS staff commercialise ideas ranging from new drugs to improvements in patient procedures.

The pharmacy team beat over 100 entries to win the award in the service delivery category for a medication review service known as COUNT (a mnemonic to help non-medical staff identify patients with medication problems). The award is for £2,500, which the team will put towards developing a secure patient database to monitor the service.

The service is provided for the PCT’s intermediate care team of trained carers and key care team of nurses who visit patients with complicated conditions in their homes. Using the mnemonic they identify problem patients and refer them to the pharmacy team. One of five pharmacists will visit the patient’s GP, discuss the case and access the patient’s notes. The pharmacist then visits the patient, along with an intermediate care or key care worker, and carries out a detailed medication and compliance review. This is followed by a return visit to the GP to make recommendations. The PCT pharmacist may also liaise with the patient’s community pharmacist if appropriate.

The service began in January 2004 and was evaluated after six months. A basic risk assessment mechanism was developed by the team and led to an estimation that half of the 42 patients referred to the service would have been admitted to hospital had they not had their medicines reviewed. This analysis secured further funding for the service from the PCT.

Fiona Harris, chief pharmacist and associate public health specialist at Guildford and Waverley PCT, told The Journal: “The key is that the pharmacists have good relationships with the GPs in all of our practices. We have access to go in and look at patients’ notes and to talk to the GPs.”