To improve compliance, synchronisation of medication, safety and reduce waste from third party ordering and stock piling.
The project was established with a centralised contact centre talking calls for patients at a number of practices in Dudley. Patients call to order their own medication and they are asked a serious of questions to ensure they are taking their medicines correctly, their medication is due and appropriate monitoring is done for high risk medications.
Third party ordering in these practices has been stopped and patients are able to order over the phone as well as online or in person at the practice. We have more than doubled the number of practices in the last 12 months and increased opening hours to increase the capacity further. We have plans to have all the 45 practices in Dudley affiliated with the POD within the next few years.
A POD Pharmacist is based in the POD who will look at clinical appropriateness of queries, and the vast majority of queries and a significant proportion of the prescriptions are signed off by the Pharmacist Prescribers in the POD. We are looking at developing services further and are in the process of developing DMARD monitoring alongside current clinical services provided at the POD such as medication reviews.
Patients have the ability to phone to order their prescription or raise a query regarding their medication during office hours. The safety of medication is improved by ensuring systematic review of monitoring results each time a high risk medicine is ordered (e.g. warfarin, methotrexate).
There is a significant reduction of waste seen by an overall reduction in both items (6-10%) and cost compared (1-4%) with comparable periods and other practices in the CCG not associated with the POD. This equates to approximately 5 million across the health economy when at scale.
We have shown a positive impact on GP workload and estimate roughly £38K per year per practice of GP time is potentially saved for each practice that joins the POD.
