Today (8 October 2020), Health Innovation West Midlands (HIWM) can reveal that the Transfer of Care Around Medicines (TCAM) – Extension to Pharmacy Teams Supporting Care Homes project has been announced as the winner of the Care Homes category at the annual PrescQIPP Awards.

The award recognises the collaborative work by Shropshire Community Trust, Shropshire CCG and Pinnacle Health (the provider of PharmOutcomes) for their project which was managed by Emma Suggett, Medicines Optimisation Lead for West Midlands Health Innovation Network.

The team in Shropshire led the way in implementing direct referral of residents that had been discharged from hospital, to pharmacy teams already providing services to their care homes, whether the service is part of a CCG or GP practice, or they are PCN or MOCH pharmacists.

The team worked with Pinnacle Health to develop a new platform to create referrals to the appropriate clinical pharmacy services for each care home resident. It is hoped that this service will provide evidence-based outcomes such as reduced readmission rates and shorter hospital stays as a result of improved medicines optimisation.

Emma says: “I feel enormously privileged to have received this award on behalf of the team at the West Midlands Health Innovation Network, Shropshire Community Healthcare Trust, Shropshire CCG and Pinnacle Health.

“We are delighted to win the Care Home category in this year’s Annual PrescQIPP Awards as it has given us the opportunity to share a project which we believe will have considerable impact on medicines optimisation in care homes through recovery and at reset.”

The PrescQIPP Annual Awards aim to give industry recognition, highlight best practice for patient care and provide opportunities for entrants to review and define the impact of their work. The winners of each category were announced at today’s ceremony.

For more information about the extension of the TCAM project to support care home residents, please email Emma at emma.suggett@healthinnovationwm.org