The Medicines Optimisation Team in Tees Valley have provided specialist support to care home providers for a number of years, working closely with local authority and healthcare commissioners and providers, supporting improvements in systems and processes involving medicines. Within Tees Valley, NECS are commissioned to provide support to care homes, delivered by a specialist team of care home pharmacy technicians.
Alongside care homes, the local authority team also commission domiciliary care support for patients, and through the knowledge of medicines gained from working with the medicines optimisation team around care homes, were aware of significant areas of improvement required in this sector of social care, with regards to the management of medicines.
Although the local authority were aware of issues surrounding medicines, without specialist support they were unaware of the potential size of the issue, and impact on working practices and patient safety. Working collaboratively with the local authority team, a pilot was undertaken in 2019 by the NECS care homes medicines optimisation team to scope the potential size of medicines issues in domiciliary care, to inform resource required and any specific areas of focus required.
Following the pilot, the local authority commissioned the medicines optimisation team to deliver specialist support to domiciliary care providers, building on the already successful work undertaken with care home providers and utilising the experience and knowledge of the NECS care home medicines optimisation team.
