Medicines

What was delivered in 2021-22? 

• Using electronic repeat dispensing (eRD) has saved more than 6,800 GP hours in Wessex in 2021-22, with the system used to  issue approximately 1.6 million extra prescription items electronically.

• Our data dashboards created with the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) have helped GPs identify patients who would benefit from the ease and safety of electronic repeat dispensing.

• Five eRD webinar training events were delivered to GP practice staff across the region, supporting those new to eRD alongside those wishing to improve their implementation, and produced two podcasts with a GP and Lead Pharmacist to discuss the benefits for health professionals. Consequently, 90% of GP practices in Wessex have issued eRD items – only 25 GP practices have issued none.

• We piloted a scheme for the NHSBSA to notify practices of patients reaching the end of their prescription year, to avoid patients dropping off the eRD system.

• To improve safety for people taking multiple medicines, we developed a Polypharmacy Comparator tool in collaboration with the NHSBSA to provide data on patient populations at greater risk from inappropriate polypharmacy, with the aim of reducing the burden on people living with several long term conditions and managing medication regimes that could cause harm. Over 800 requests were made for the comparators during 2021-22. Read more about getting the balance right in this blog post written by the Wessex AHSN and national clinical lead for polypharmacy, Clare Howard, and the AHSN Network’s polypharmacy programme manager Amy Semple.

• We led the development of a national suite of opioid prescribing comparators available to all Primary Care Networks, GP practices and Integrated Care Systems. We enabled local clinicians to identify patients at greatest risk, recorded a podcast with a local pain specialist, and shared good practice in helping patients on opioids for long term pain to reduce their medicines safely.

• Over 100 clinicians trained in addressing polypharmacy and safe deprescribing in patients at greater risk, through our Polypharmacy Action Learning Sets model. This was complemented by the launch of the Wessex Polypharmacy Community of Practice which brings together patients and clinicians from all sectors to discuss this complex topic and work together to progress change.

• We held a round table event for pharmacy professionals from all sectors, to discuss the health inequalities that Covid has exposed and how language barriers in relation to medicines could be resolved when patients do not have English as their first language or when reading medication instructions is problematic. We supported the spread of Written Medicine, a tool which supports multilingual medication labelling. Written Medicine is an innovation currently supported by the NHS Innovation Accelerator programme.