Policy

Hospital pharmacy standards — supportive, enabling, challenging

Clinical Pharmacist has been keeping you updated on the development of professional standards for hospital pharmacy services. With their publication by the RPS imminent, we can now reveal what they say 

New oral anticoagulants present big challenges for NHS commissioners

New oral anticoagulants for the prevention of stroke for patients with atrial fibrillation have been on the horizon for years. With the first licence now granted, how will commissioners control the costs? 

Pharmacists can help with setting service priorities in the new NHS

Using an evidence-based approach to setting priorities means that primary care organisations can decide fairly what services they fund; however, the decisions are still difficult and often attract negative press

How will NHS Direct now handle complex calls about medicines?

This March saw the end of a long-standing arrangement whereby NHS Direct could contact UKMi for help with enquiries about medicines

What kind of medication incidents should pharmacists be reporting?

Pharmacists frequently detect and prevent medicines-related safety incidents. However, reporting all of these is generally not feasible. How should pharmacists prioritise what incidents they report?

Trends in NHS funding: patient access schemes

Patient access schemes allow manufacturers to subsidise the cost of innovative medicines used by the NHS. But as more of these schemes are approved, the administrative burden must be constrained

Trends in NHS funding: additional private care

When a patient is unable to receive a potentially beneficial treatment on the NHS, he or she is entitled to pay for it privately without losing the right to NHS care. Such is the essence of “additional private care”

Trends in NHS funding: individual funding requests

You have a patient who you believe will benefit from a medicine that is not routinely funded by their primary care trust. Here we look at how such individual funding requests can be handled by hospitals

Trends in NHS funding: payment by results

Now more than ever pharmacists must think beyond the clinical appropriateness of medicines to the financial implications of therapeutic choices. This month we take a look at Payment by Results

What NICE advises for managing unstable angina or an NSTEMI

NICE has published guidance on the management of unstable angina and non-ST-segment-elevation myocardial infarction. This article summarises the key recommendations from the guidance

How guidelines to reduce patients’ VTE risk will affect NHS practice

NICE has issued guidance to help reduce the occurrence of venous thromboembolism. Assessment of VTE risk is recommended for all inpatients and the use of aspirin for thromboprophylaxis is tabooed

"Responsible pharmacist" coming soon to a hospital near you

New legislation detailing the concept of the responsible pharmacist has been passed. From October 2009 it will affect the way medicines are sold from registered pharmacy premises, including those in hospitals. Colette McCreedy reports

What are vascular checks and what do they mean for pharmacy?

Vascular risk assessments have been highlighted as a priority by the Department of Health in England for people aged 40 to 74 years. How can pharmacists help the Government deliver its policy