PJ Online | Medicines Management bulletin (Mar/Apr 2002)

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Medicines Management
Issue no 2, p3
March/April 2002

Comment

Will the next round of structural changes to the health service in England and Wales on 1 April be good or bad for medicines management?

On the downside, the fact that NHS managers will be concerned about making sure the new organisations are running smoothly, establishing new services will not be near the top of their agendas for some time. On the other hand, with many fledgling PCTs starting life short of money, medicines management programmes may be an appealing way for managers to curb costs.

Although medicines management undoubtedly can save money, that should not be the driver for introducing schemes. Rather, medicines management should be used as a tool for improving the quality of prescribing and making best use of medicines for patients. If some schemes do save money, all well and good, but that should not be the prime reason for a PCO to introduce them.

Some of the authors in this issue used to hail from PCGs that have now become PCTs. We decided that as their articles were written when they were still in PCGs we should retain the original name.