All the clinical pharmacists are now in post and have completed the Centre for Pharmacy Post Graduate Education (CPPE) residential course.
The first analysis of data collection has been completed and below is a brief summary so far for the first Quarter (Q2) all pharmacists have been in post; some only from August 2016:
- completed a total of 500 medication reviews;
- made 731 interventions – this includes reviewing hospital discharges and out-patient letters, adding medication to reduce risk e.g. addition of a PPI with NSAID use, addition of an anti-platelet in a stroke patient, optimising dosing, stopping unnecessary medication and reviewing patient compliance;
- made £18,285 cost savings projected over a 12 month period.
Key Achievements include:
- Increased Community Pharmacy awareness by attending an engagement event to publicise the national pilot, including details of local practice involvement, to improve working links and better stream queries from pharmacist to pharmacist;
- Increased local hospital pharmacy team awareness, including links to City Hospitals Sunderland discharge process project involvement;
- Contributed to clinical support for the pharmacists by organising a Bloods Interpretation session delivered by a local GP;
- Provided one to one support to individual pharmacists around setting up and running a medication review clinic;
- All pharmacists have now applied to the Independent Prescribing course and one of the team has started the course in October 2016 (2 are already prescribers and 1 is in the process of compiling their submission);
- Work with CIT’s to include a pharmacist in the MDT process where available and appropriate.