Selected items from the NHS England long term plan Part 8

[holyshedballs]

Something we are familiar with, the long term plan wishes to reduce prescription of low clinical value medicines. PrescQIPP clearly has a long reach. Hopefully the work that Thyroid UK the Thyroid Trust et al. is puttiing to into liothyronine will have a good result. BUT the good news is that the NHS will attempt to manage procurement of drugs.

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Delivering value from the £16 billion we spend on medicines. Over the next five years, all providers will be expected to implement electronic prescribing systems to reduce errors by up to 30%. Up to 10% of hospital admissions in the elderly population are medicines-related, so pharmacists will routinely work in general practice helping to relieve pressure on GPs and supporting care homes. Research shows as many as 50% of patients do not take their medicines as intended and pharmacists will support patients to take their medicines to get the best from them, reduce waste and promote self-care. We will reduce the prescribing of low clinical value medicines and items which are readily available over the counter to save over £200 million a year. This aim is supported by agreed measures to manage branded health service medicines through the new statutory and voluntary pricing and access schemes. The new voluntary scheme has been agreed between industry, DHSC and NHS England, and is intended to ensure access to innovative new medicines coupled with affordability. We will use digital technology to ensure that best practice is followed, generics are used where possible and duplication is eliminated. Augmented intelligence to analyse data on medicines prescribing will also help us to eliminate fraud.

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Research evidence shows some interventions are not clinically effective or only

effective when they are performed in specific circumstances. And as medical science

advances, some interventions are superseded by those that are less invasive or more effective.

The NHS needs to ensure that the least effective interventions are not routinely performed, or only performed in more clearly defined circumstances. This summer, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, NICE, NHS Clinical Commissioners, NHS England and NHS Improvement joined forces to consult on how best to reduce inappropriate interventions. This will potentially avoid needless harm to patients, and free up scarce professional time for performing other interventions - including creating headroom for proven innovations. The time and resources saved will all be reinvested in patient care.

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK]

The main reason I do not accept electronic prescriptions is that it means I cannot go to a different pharmacy, should the need arise. The classic with levothyroxine being inability of any single pharmacy to guarantee to supply the make(s) I find most satisfactory.

If I could nominate a pharmacy and, if they are not able to supply what I want, go to another pharmacy with some sort of token or code, then I might be happy to do so. Having to go back to GP surgery to get my prescription re-issued makes electronic prescriptions unattractive.

(Still leaves a problem should I decide to use my prescription to purchase from abroad.)

[Angel_of_the_North in reply to helvella]

And nothing electronic is immune from errors - in fact typing into a computer often introduces errors as people don't notice when they hit an adjoining key (and never admit that they did it).