A PHARMACY-led project which developed virtual education webinars for safer prescribing has scooped a prestigious award.
NHS County Durham Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) medicines optimisation team received national recognition for their Addressing Problematic Polypharmacy – De-prescribing Education in County Durham project at the PrescQIPP 2020 Annual Awards.
Working with pharmacists from County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust (CDDFT), CCG GP practices and the County Durham and Darlington Local Pharmaceutical Committee (LPC), the project, funded by The Academic Health Science Network North East and Cumbria (AHSN NENC), developed a series of education sessions for local clinicians giving practical advice on de-prescribing medication for patients with chronic pain, risk of falls, risk of acute kidney injury and cardiovascular disease.
Rachel Berry, advanced medicines optimisation pharmacist, NHS County Durham CCG, said: “Too many medications, known as polypharmacy, can become a problem—the more medicines you take, the greater the chances one medication will have a negative interaction with another and cause a serious adverse effect.
“The aim of the project was to enable our clinicians to feel more confident in reducing patients’ medications, leading to safer prescribing with fewer adverse effects.
“We are absolutely delighted that our work has been recognised with this award.”
The education classes were delivered by webinar with over 125 views per session. Slides were also made available to other NHS organisations to enable the national sharing of good practice.
