The Medicines and Prescribing team supports GP practices to help ensure that the people of Solihull get the best possible outcomes from Solihull CCG's investment in medicines. The team promotes and facilitates high quality, safe, evidence-based, cost-effective prescribing and use of medicines across the health economy. The pharmacists and technicians within the Medicines and Prescribing team work with GP practices to:
- help deliver the best clinical outcomes (including implementing NICE guidance)
- promote appropriate use of antibiotics
- help patients use inhalers correctly
- help reduce medicines waste
- review medicines prescribed for care home and other frail residents
- respond to medication safety alerts
- Please only order the medicines that you need at the time.
- Last year the cost of unused medicines in Solihull could have funded nearly 1,000 more routine operations
- Once medicines have left the pharmacy they cannot be reused, recycled or used by anyone else – all returned medicines have to be destroyed
- Check what medicines you still have at home before re-ordering
- Only tick the boxes on the repeat prescription form for those medicines you need at the time
- Let your GP or pharmacist know if you've stopped taking any of your medicines
- Only ask someone else to order your prescription for you if it's really helping you to get the medicines you need
- Colds and most coughs, sinusitis, earaches and sore throats often get better without antibiotics.
- This leaflet shows how long these illnesses usually last, what you can do to help and when you should seek further help if worried.
- It is important that you only take antibiotics when they are needed. Bacteria can adapt and find ways to survive the effects of an antibiotic. They become 'antibiotic resistant' so that the antibiotic no longer works. The more you use an antibiotic, the more bacteria become resistant to it.
- What vitamin D is and where we get it from
- Who is at risk of vitamin D deficiency
- Testing for vitamin D deficiency
- How to increase vitamin D levels
Local decision making about medicines
The NHS Constitution states that patients "have the right to drugs and treatments that have been recommended by NICE for use in the NHS, if your doctor says they are clinically appropriate for you."
Solihull CCG commissions all medicines with a positive NICE Technology Appraisal within the statutory three month period.
The NHS Constitution further states that patients "have the right to expect local decisions on funding of other (non-NICE) drugs and treatments to be made rationally following a proper consideration of the evidence."
In April 2014, an Area Prescribing Committee (APC) was established to make local decisions about medicines and prescription products which are funded by the partner CCGs (Solihull, Birmingham South Central, Birmingham CrossCity, and Sandwell & West Birmingham). This committee has representation from each of the CCGs and the NHS Trusts providing healthcare to the local population.
The APC supercedes the three separate decision making groups which were previously in place across this geographical area. It is currently undertaking a major piece of work to harmonise the three separate Formularies into a single APC version.
The decisions of the APC will be published via the APC web Formulary. The policy and supporting documents underpinning the process by which it reaches decisions can also be accessed via this webpage.
Until the harmonisation work is complete, the Formulary previously in place across Solihull, parts of Birmingham, and Heart of England Foundation Trust should be consulted for sections of the APC Formulary which have not yet been updated. It is published below as The Interface Formulary for Adults.
The APC Formulary will ultimately also cover woundcare.