“Collaborative” moves into hospitals
In England, the national medicines management services collaborative, which for the last two years has focused on primary care, is being extended to hospitals.
Hospital trusts are being invited to apply to join the first wave following
an announcement by the National Prescribing Centre in November.
The initiative is being run by the NPC medicines management service,
whose collaborative programme has been instrumental in putting medicines
management on the map in primary care.
Now, according to Richard Seal, NPC director of medicines management,
it hopes to see a similar success story in the secondary sector.
He said: “We are expecting a lot of interest from hospital trusts
and, ahead of the announcement, we had a number of inquiries from various
sources asking if they could
run a medicines management scheme in hospital.”
Up to 10 trusts will be selected for the first wave and will receive £40,000
each to meet the costs of appointing a facilitator to co-ordinate the
project and recruiting a 12-person project team from the trust to help
get the scheme off the ground.
The project teams will form a medicines management collaborative network
and, relying on their own local experience, will look at how they can
spread their new ideas across the hospital sector.
The NPC is looking for projects which develop a local hospital medicines
management strategy, promote multi-professional team working and increase
the profile of pharmacy within the trust.
Bids should also aim to reflect the recommendations
of key pharmacy documents which include the Audit Commission’s “A
spoonful of sugar: medicines management in NHS hospitals” and the
cabinet office report, “Making a difference — reducing burdens
in hospitals.”
Mr Seal added: “What we hope to achieve through the collaboratives,
is to make sure that medicines management issues are on the agenda of
trusts and not just on the agenda of their pharmacy departments.”
The extension of the medicines management collaborative was welcomed
by hospital pharmacists.
Former president of the Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists, and a member
of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Council, Helen Howe, said: “I
think people have been involved in this kind of work already, without
any funding.”
At Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge she was working on developing
a joint formulary with primary care, which, she predicted, could be a
suitable candidate for a new collaborative bid.
She knows of other hospital pharmacists who are involved in other initiatives
such as automated prescribing and one-stop shops for dispensing which
could also become collaborative projects.
Mrs Howe added: “It’s likely that the collaborative programme
will bring along more hospital-centric opportunities for medicines management.”
Further details about the new collaborative programme, including how
to apply, are available from the NPC website: www.npc.co.uk
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