Two key community pharmacy roles have received a boost with the launch of a medicines information dashboard, together with support for public health services. Charlotte Rixon reports

NHS England has launched the Medicines Optimisation Prototype Dashboard, to encourage commissioners to focus more on correct medicines use, rather than on drug costs and volume. The dashboard brings together data on various topics, including hospital admission rates, patient experience indicators, medication safety and community pharmacy services. NHS England hopes that clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) and NHS trusts will use this information to help improve medicines use and reduce medicines waste and hospital admissions in their local areas.

At present, up to half of prescribed medicines are not taken as intended and around seven per cent of unplanned hospital admissions are medicines-related. Medicines waste in primary care costs the NHS £300 million each year. The database should also help CCGs to ensure that patients receive medicines support when they move between healthcare settings – for example, by recommending that discharged patients be referred to their community pharmacy for an MUR or the NMS.

Welcoming the launch, Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) English Pharmacy Board chair David Branford said that the dashboard: “builds on the RPS principles and provides a useful first attempt to pull together a wide variety of medicines safety, medicines use and pharmacy developments for use locally”.

Public health boost

Meanwhile, Public Health England (PHE) has committed to bolstering its support for community pharmacy by investing in healthy living pharmacies (HLPs) and pharmacy screening services. In a letter to the Pharmacy and Public Health Forum, PHE promised to progress the rollout of HLPs by providing greater administrative support and promoting the spread of best practice. In addition, PHE said it will scale up pharmacy’s contribution to its Health and Wellbeing Directorate’s programme by supporting pharmacy-led public health services, such as the NHS health check.

“It’s great to see this ongoing commitment from PHE, to help maintain a forward momentum for pharmacy in public health,” commented chief executive of the National Pharmacy Association, Mike Holden. “I hope this support will give pharmacies and commissioners greater confidence to invest.”