Medicines Management
Issue no 4, p4
July/August 2002

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First wave collaborative sites make progress

Practices and PCTs taking part in the English medicines management collaborative are making steady progress in each of the four measures being used to assess improvement and activity.

The first six month’s worth of data from the 26 first-wave pilot sites show that, on average, people aged over 65 years who are taking more than four medicines are taking slightly fewer medicines six months after the first data was collected. On average, by April 2002 patients were taking 6.85 items compared with 7.12 items in October 2001.

The proportion of prescriptions that are incomplete has also fallen, from 55 per cent in October last year to 44 per cent by April this year. The measure is intended to reduce wastage by ensuring that all regular items are written on the prescription.

One of the most impressive changes has been a fall in the proportion of prescriptions not detailing specific dosage instructions. At the start of the pilots 22.5 per cent of all prescriptions had no dosage instructions, but this had fallen to 10.5 per cent by April 2002.

Richard Seal, project manager for the medicines management collaborative, National Prescribing Centre, Liverpool, said: “We’re really pleased because it is obviously connected with patient safety.”

He added that it was important to remember that the data were not results, but measures of improvement activity. “We are asking have the things happened that we were expecting to happen? And bear in mind that these are measures of improvement, not performance management measures.”

Mr Seal said that the data were presented as averages, and that the site-based data behind the averages were interesting. “Some of the site-based data is more impressive,” he said.

For example, Mr Seal said that some practices had found some patients who should actually have been on more medicines when reviewing older people taking four or more medicines.

So patient care had improved, although the average number of items being taken would probably level out and may not continue to show a fall across the board.