Uniformity of enhanced services skills in NW England recognised
A group that has harmonised accreditation requirements for pharmacists to provide enhanced services across primary care trusts in the north west of England scooped an Acorn award for pharmacy at the NHS Alliance conference held in Manchester last month.
Acorn awards recognise innovation and service redesign at the frontline
of primary care. The Harmonisation of Accreditation Group (HAG) has standardised
PCT accreditation requirements for specific enhanced services with the
aim of reducing obstacles to the continuity and timely provision of these
services, therefore improving patient access. The English Pharmacy Board
of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society has asked the group to explore extending
the scheme to the rest of the country.
The runner up in the pharmacy category was the pharmacy team
at East Sussex Downs and Weald PCT for their “Medicines
at home” scheme.
The scheme was set up in 2004 to reduce the number of patients being
admitted to hospital or care homes because they could not manage their
medicines. Patients can be referred to the scheme by any health or social
care professional. Patients are visited at home by a member of the PCT’s
assessment team.
Any clinical issues are subsequently discussed with
their GP and medicines support issues are discussed with their community
pharmacist, who then provides the required level of support and works
closely with their GP to ensure that changes to medication are implemented.
Pharmacy staff were also successful in the clinical governance category
of the awards. The medicines management group at Norfolk and Norwich
University Hospital developed “Medications Briefing”, a quarterly
newsletter, designed to reduce medicines-related incidents within the
trust.
The newsletters are produced by the principal pharmacist in medicines
management, in collaboration with consultants, specialist pharmacists
and specialist nurses. They highlight themes from reported medication
incidents for training and learning purposes, providing information on
medication-related issues covering good nursing practice and prescribing
advice.
Since the newsletters’ introduction the trust has seen
a reduction in the number of incidents around the briefing topics, which
have included methotrexate, vancomycin and missed doses.
Michael Dixon, chairman of the NHS Alliance, said: “These prestigious
awards show how effective frontline primary care is in delivering care
to NHS patients. They are about ‘on the ground’ activities
which are making a real difference — and celebrate the successes
of clinicians and managers alike.”
HAG A competencies
and training framework for provision of a minor ailment service
has been published by the HAG.
The framework outlines the purpose
and design
of suitable local training, which will allow accredited community pharmacists
to be recognised by all PCTs in NHS North West.
Frameworks have already been
developed for provision of emergency hormonal contraception, smoking cessation
services, supervised consumption of prescribed medicines, and needle and
syringe exchange services. |
|
The
Pharmaceutical Journal
Acrobat
Reader