The Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes (BLMK) ICB Care Home Medicines Optimisation Team supports 208 CQC registered care homes across four 'places' within the ICB.
The role of the team is to promote safety, quality and safeguarding around medicines in the care homes, supporting the avoidance of medication errors, safety incidents and potential hospital admissions in this vulnerable cohort of almost 6000 individuals.
The team recognised there was huge variation across Adult Social Care (ASC) services with regards to standards of medication training and an objective was set to ensure all ASC staff were enabled to have access to high quality, standardised medication training.
To meet the vision of standardised medication training for ASC staff, the care home team came up with the concept of developing and delivering a bespoke ICB led innovative 3-tier medication training programme in line with NICE guidelines and CQC regulations.
A business case was presented to the Senior Leadership Team which led to the ICB funding the 3 PrescQIPP Medicines Use in Care Homes Courses which is used as the Tier 1 foundation training level of the offer. Tier 2 'step up' training is a bimonthly virtual bitesize medication training sessions based on topics identified from local concerns and issues around medication in care homes, and also focuses on embedding local guidance and procedures.
Tier 3 is a full day face to face Medication Champion training day, available to all care home staff with the criteria that the attendees must complete all 3 PrescQIPP Tier 1 Courses before attending, and attend as many of the Tier 2 sessions as possible.
The training offer was rolled out in early 2023 with the first full programme of Tier 2 sessions running from April 2023 to March 2024. The ongoing interest, uptake and attendance is indicative of the appetite and need for targeted medication training in this sector.
Since January 2023, over 1300 PrescQIPP courses have been completed by ASC staff in BLMK ICB, seven Tier 2 sessions have been delivered, with over 1800 attendances overall, and four Medication Champion sessions have been convened, giving rise to 53 ICB Medication Champions across the ICB. Feedback from the Medication Champion Sessions included 'Amazing training, gained so much knowledge and feel so much more confident and positive. All staff supporting with the training were very knowledgeable and helpful.'
