EMAHSN recognises the value of its own medicines optimisation programme, and nationally, as it became part of the deliverables for the second five year licence period from May 2018. I was delighted to be part of the recruitment panel to select a Pharmacist to lead and work collaboratively with the 14 other Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs), to develop, share and spread good practice in medicines optimisation. 
So what is Medicines Optimisation and why should we be interested in it?

Medicines optimisation has been part of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain agenda since May 2013. Medicines optimisation looks at how patients use their medicines over time, ensuring that the right patients get the right medicines at the right time. Ultimately medicines optimisation can help encourage patients to take ownership of their treatment. Focus on improved outcomes for patients is likely to help ensure patients and the NHS get better value.

Medicines optimisation is an integral part of the AHSNs second licence, granted by the NHS board on 24 May 2018. The NHS spends over £16.8 billion on medicines and it is anticipated that this will grow to £20 billion in the next five years. The AHSN medicines optimisation national programme aims to address.

• Polypharmacy
• Transfer of care of Medicines
• Improving patient safety

Polypharmacy

A person taking 10 or more medicines is 300% more likely to be admitted to hospital. 6.5% of hospital admissions are for adverse effects of medicines; this rises to 17% in the over 65 age group. The programme will establish systematic multi-disciplinary medication reviews in settings such as care homes, develop more patient-centred care, delivering savings from reduced levels of prescribing, reduced medication waste and an impact on avoidable admissions.

Transfer of Care Around Medicines

Research has repeatedly shown that patients often experience errors or unintentional changes to their medicines when they move between care providers, presenting a significant risk to patient safety. Pharmacists in the community are well placed to support patients recently discharged from hospital. They can help patients get the best from their medicines, by providing services such as the new medicines service (NMS) and post-discharge medicines use reviews (MURs).

Improving Patient Safety

PINCER (pharmacist-led information technology intervention for medication errors) is an audit software package which helps GP practices review their patient caseloads and highlight patients who may be at risk of prescribing errors, developed in the East Midlands.

Medicines optimisation has been part of EMAHSN’s priorities in its first licensing period 2013-2018. At this time, the principles of Medicines optimisation have been aligned with the East Midlands Patient Safety Collaborative. These projects continue to be supported by EMAHSN:

• PINCER:- pharmacist-led information technology invention reducing errors in General Practice prescribing
• OptiMed: - Unit Dose Closed Loop Medicines Solutions using robotic technology and logistics software to produce and deliver individual doses of medication. Enabling complete control of medicine prescribing, supply and administration - reducing medication errors, cutting waste and delivering big savings.
• EPIFFANY - is an innovative approach to training healthcare professionals such as junior doctors, proven to support big improvements in performance of complex tasks such as prescribing.

PINCER is one of seven programmes developed regionally that has been selected for national adoption and spread across the AHSN Network during 2018-2020. PINCER is a pharmacist-led information technology intervention for reducing clinically important errors in general practice prescribing. Initial implementation of PINCER across 361 GP practices in the East Midlands reduced prescribing error rates by up to 50%.

To find out more about our medicines optimisation work contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.