As patients are living longer with more complex conditions and with continual advances in treatment, making sure that patients get the right medicine and are taking medication correctly is more important than ever.
Through their knowledge and expertise, the ICB Medicines Optimisation and Pharmacy team works with patients and all the health and care services that support them to:
- Make sure that the medicines given to patients are used well and safely.
- Encourage people to understand their medicines and be involved in their own care.
- Avoid people taking unnecessary medicines or those that might be detrimental to them.
- Improve people’s health outcomes and support people to stay as well and as independent as they can.
- Reduce medicines waste.
The Medicines Optimisation and Pharmacy team has the following roles:
- Medicines optimisation – making sure that health and care professionals provide patients with the best medication they can. By this we mean making sure that medication suits the patient, making sure it is taken for the time required, and stopping medication where it is no longer needed.
- Medicines safety – learning from others and preventing errors and harm from medicines.
- Agreeing the first and second choice of medicines used by GPs and hospital clinicians to create an official medicines list – called a ‘formulary’ – together with guidelines.
- Managing online prescribing systems to help healthcare professionals use the locally recommended medicines choices.
- Educating clinical staff on new advances in medication.