Report benefits of £12m investment
Pharmacists who received funding as part of the Government’s £12m campaign to promote better antimicrobial use should think about how they can show that they have brought benefits with the money, according to Duncan McRobbie, principal clinical pharmacist at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital NHS Trust, London. Mr McRobbie made these comments during a meeting about methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus
aureus at the British Pharmaceutical
Conference in Manchester last month.
It is not yet known whether the Department of Health will require clinical
pharmacists to report formally about what they have achieved in terms
of reducing resistance and, if so, what form the evaluation will take. “Whether
or not the Government ask us to, we should be thinking about how we can
show that we have brought benefits,” Mr McRobbie said. “Otherwise,
there must be a danger that money for clinical pharmacy initiatives in
the future might not be forthcoming,” he continued.
Carrying out audits of antimicrobial use across a trust would be a simple
way of demonstrating benefits, according to Phil Wiffen, a member of
the Cochrane review team and previously at the DoH.
Alison Ewing, clinical director of pharmacy at the Royal Liverpool and
Broadgreen University Hospital NHS Trust, suggested that a national approach
to this auditing should be taken.
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Hospital Pharmacist