Pharmacy Technicians

• Carry out medication safety audits to support safe prescribing and monitoring
• Manage medication monitoring for high-risk medicines and long-term conditions
• Review and management of national safety alerts to keep patients safe
• Support and lead a variety of quality improvement projects
• Supporting the management of medicines in patient care homes
• Pharmacy Technical level medication reviews
• Answer medicine-related queries from patients and other members of the practice team
• Deal with discharge and outpatient letters from secondary care settings, ensuring any changes of your medication are updated accurately on your GP record
• Support prescribing teams in managing repeat prescriptions

Grand Union Primary Care Network

• Abington Medical Centre
• Abington Park Surgery
• King Edward Road Surgery
• Leicester Terrace Health Centre
• Greenview Surgery

Grand Union PCN has thirteen care homes. Care home patients are some of the most vulnerable patients. NICE ‘Medicines Management in Care Homes Quality Standard 2’ states that good communication about a resident’s medicines is a key factor in preventing medication errors when care home residents transfer between care settings and promotes continuity of care following transfer.

It is likely that a patient will be discharged from hospital on a different medicine regimen from the one that they were taking on admission. 45% of medicines prescribed at discharge are new medicines.

To try and minimise this risk to these patients a process has been introduced for each new care home resident. When a new care home resident is registered in the practice, the pharmacy task group will receive notification. The pharmacy technician will conduct a notes review once their records are transferred and a medication reconciliation will be completed using a minimum of two resources to confirm current medication, including those purchased over the counter or prescribed by secondary care.

The senior carer / nurse is then contacted via phone to gather more information, including weight, blood pressure, allergy status, mobility issues, recent falls, mood, pain, eating, drinking and any swallowing concerns. Any outstanding or follow up blood tests will be arranged. All of this facilitates the pharmacists in carrying out a more in-depth Structured Medication Review (SMR).

The patient’s notes are updated and repeat medication added, after confirmation from a prescriber. Medication is issued if required, considering where they are in the medication cycle, so quantities may need to be adjusted. Online ordering proxy access will be granted if required and a homely remedy medicine will be authorised if needed.

Any urgent issues will be highlighted to the GP either by task, duty list or next ward round. A task will also be sent to the clinical pharmacist to inform that a new patient SMR was required or booked.