Health Innovation West Midlands presents: virtual Polypharmacy Workshops (vPW)

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What are the virtual Polypharmacy Workshops?

Deprescribing medication has a cognitive and emotional toll on Health Care Professionals, yet is vital in reducing adverse drug reactions, pill burden and hospital admissions for patients. Our virtual Polypharmacy Workshops will equip you with the knowledge and skills to undertake Structured Medication Reviews (SMRs) confidently and most importantly will help you make the best use of your most valuable and limited resource: time.

We will provide you with a practice specific data pack which will allow you to create a bespoke Polypharmacy Action and Implementation plan, allow you to reflect on your current practice to kick start CPD cycles, help you to understand your personal barriers and support you to develop Polypharmacy Pledges which will ultimately improve health outcomes for your patients.

2025 Schedule & Content

Below are the available Cohorts – please note these are capped at 40 Delegates. We will exclude the option to select a Cohort on the Sign-Up form once its full. All are hosted via Microsoft Teams.

The feedback we’ve received so far

Since September 2023 144 delegates have joined the workshops. At the end of each session delegates are asked to complete a series of polls. Below is a snapshot of 2 key questions.

Important things to note:

  • Delegates need to attend all 3 sessions to successfully complete the set of workshops and complete a final feedback form to receive a certificate of attendance.
  • By signing up for this course you are committing to producing a Polypharmacy Action & Implementation plan and sharing this with Health Innovation West Midlands at a minimum.
  • HIWM will also support you to develop the above Polypharmacy Action and Implementation plan into a QI Project.
  • We ask you to indicate your level of commitment during the registration process.

Your Polypharmacy Action and Implementation plan / QI project as applicable may be shared with your local Meds Op leads and showcased by the Health Innovation Network.

By the end of the set of workshops each Delegate will leave with:

  • A practice specific data pack highlighting where you currently sit with the NHSBSA Polypharmacy Comparators (Equivalent to running 25 separate ePACT2 searches)
  • A bespoke Polypharmacy Action and Implementation plan which can form the basis of a quality improvement project over the coming year.
  • Polypharmacy Pledges – a personal pledge on what you will do differently moving forward to address polypharmacy with your patients.
  • Kickstart planned CPD cycles for any clinical medication groups that you find personally challenging to deprescribe and highlighting sources of information you can use to upskill in those areas.
  • Access to a toolkit of resources that can support you with your ongoing Polypharmacy journey after the workshops.
  • Access to an SMR best practice guidance document created by Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin ICS Medicines Optimisation team.
  • A Quality Improvement poster template that can be used to capture outputs of your Polypharmacy work this year.
  • Access to a Quality Improvement poster library, demonstrating the kinds of project that can be run using the learning from the workshops and the benefits created for patients and practices.
  • Support from HIWM to help you implement the improved SMR process developed by the Health Innovation Network Polypharmacy programme.

Who should attend?

  • Health Care Professionals that regularly perform Structured Medication Reviews (SMRs) in primary care settings.
  • General Practitioners
  • Advanced Nurse Practitioners
  • Pharmacists that perform SMRs – i.e. working towards IP qualification or equivalent
  • Independent Prescribers
  • Care Home Teams
  • Community Health Medication Optimisation teams that perform SMRs and frailty reviews.

We encourage multiple members of the same GP Practice that are involved in SMR’s to attend together to create a combined Polypharmacy Action & Implementation Plan for the practice. Supporting an MDT approach.

This list is not exhaustive, if you feel like you should be eligible but aren’t sure contact us at polypharmacy@healthinnovationwm.org we will be more than happy to look into this for you!

Are you interested in joining?

Compete the Sign-up Form here!

You will receive joining instructions 2 days before each training session. If you do not receive these, please contact polypharmacy@healthinnovationwm.org

Testimonials

“I have been taking more time to complete the SMRs in more detail about each medicine and discussing options with the patient to see how we can optimise their medication better. I have also been working with the Pharmacy Technician to prioritise patients to complete SMRs based on searches in the EMIS system and age.”

“More confident to review meds and stop where appropriate knowing that there are now resources to support.”

“Workshop has made me aware of the plethora of resources and networks available to support reviews of patients’ medication, especially medications I am unfamiliar with. The workshops have also given me some ideas of how to identify patients who may benefit from a review of their medication within the context of a mental health team. I will be sharing these ideas with colleagues and managers.”

“The project is still going on, and we hope to embed it as a permanent approach to SMRs in our PCN.”

“I am more confident in discussing deprescribing and doing it whereas before I would have been tempted to avoid it.”

“I am now more confident at managing SMRs which entail Polypharmacy. I now have a greater understanding of the tools used to support Polypharmacy and deprescribing. This will assist me in becoming the best PCN Pharmacist that I can be.”

“Learned more about deprescribing, shared decision making, increased confidence for carrying out SMR’s.”