Excellence in Health Outcomes (New for 2014)

Summary of work

Community Pharmacy West Yorkshire (CPWY) wanted to raise public awareness of the services and support available from community pharmacists. Specifically they wanted to help patients get the best quality outcomes from medicines – an important NHS priority – through interacting with their community pharmacist. Liberation helped CPWY launch a medicines optimisation scratch card, supported by an educational grant from Pfizer.

The scratch card, designed in consultation with the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) and implemented by CPWY, aimed to support patients in getting the best out of their medicines by generating opportunities for engagement with their local pharmacy team. In addition, the card:

• Helped embed medicines optimisation principles as part of routine practice
• Provided opportunities for pharmacy teams to develop their understanding of individuals’ experiences with their medicines
• And raised public awareness and uptake of pharmacy services designed to support medicines use such as the New Medicines Service (NMS) and Medicines Use Reviews (MURs).

Community pharmacists embraced the initiative with great enthusiasm and, in preliminary evaluation, endorsed the scratch cards as a good facilitation tool to engage patients and initiate discussions around a patient’s medication.

Judges comments

We liked this simple, innovative concept to diagnose the issue and explore it with patients. It helps them to realise the extent to which pharmacists can provide additional support and proved to be very popular with patients.