Mbështetja e kërkimit mbi mbetjet e ilaçeve

In 2016, NHS Bristol Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) published a report on medicines waste. Figures revealed at least £5 million is spent on unused medication each year in Bristol and £300 million nationally. The report identified huge potential for improvements to patient care and use of NHS resources.

ICB Ekipi i kërkimit saw the potential of collaborating with local academics to investigate possible solutions to this problem. We facilitated a meeting between the author of the CCG report and academics at the University of Bristol.

Ndikimi ynë

We invested £18K in Dr Rupert Payne, from the University of Bristol, to undertake a short-term project to co-develop a research application to the NIHR. The application to the NIHR was successful, and the CCG was awarded £1.8 million in October 2017 to investigate optimising polypharmacy in primary care.

Optimising polypharmacy is the process a pharmacist or GP undertakes to consider a patient’s whole medication list, rather than treating each medication individually. They might reduce the number of drugs a patient takes, or change their prescription list to increase their wellbeing. This helps to improve medicines waste.