Prescribing & Medicines Management
Issue no 2, p4
March/April 2003

This article
Reprint
Photocopy

News summary

Sunderland best

Sunderland Teaching PCT has won a Best Practice award for its multidisciplinary prescribing team, which works across 55 practices to improve access to evidence-based medicines.

The awards, organised by Primary Care Report, recognise outstanding examples of services that involve patients more closely in decisions about their medicines.

The judges looked at two other short-listed medicines management initiatives. The School of Pharmacy in London worked with Moss Pharmacies to improve patient adherence by using follow-up telephone calls by pharmacists. And a team from Keele University working with Pfizer has completed a study looking at the use of outcome guarantees, which offer to pay financial compensation to prescribers if medications do not reach agreed performance targets. Patient compliance was high, and no refunds were made as the drug surpassed targets.