Annual Awards 2026

Our five categories for 2026 align with NHS priorities:

Addressing health inequalities
Care homes/domiciliary care/carer medicines optimisation
Data tools and technology to support medicines optimisation
Enhanced productivity, sustainability and value for money
Patient safety and addressing overprescribing

Criteria	Early stage projects	Delivered / late stage projects	Score out of 4
How innovative is it? / Has this been done before?	This could be a new innovative project that hasn't been done before or an old problem/ project delivered in a new way which would be innovative. For example, new levers/ contractual solutions to solve an old problem.
Measurable evidence and impact	Does the project demonstrate clear plans for evidence generation, e.g. number of patients: reviewed, deprescribed, switched to be recorded. Prescribing items and costs to be measured. Patient health outcomes to be measured, e.g. patient satisfaction surveys planned, hospital admissions data to be reviewed. Potential impact - Explain how you will evaluate what has been the impact of the project on outcomes and value. e.g. how will the patient satisfaction surveys show patient outcome benefits if there are any. How will the recorded changes in prescribing items and costs demonstrate value. How will review of hospital admission data show improvements in patient outcomes and value.	Does the project demonstrate good evidence generation, e.g. number of patients: reviewed, deprescribed, switched. Changes in prescribing items and costs. Patient health outcomes results, e.g. patient satisfaction survey results, hospital admissions data. Delivered impact - What has been the impact on patient outcomes and values as a result of the project. Link results obtained with impact on patient outcomes and value, e.g. prescription items and costs reduced representing better value for money; patient survey results showed improvements in pain scores and so improving patient pain management.
Does it meet the MO principles?	Does the project consider Medicines Optimisation principles such as patient safety, medicines review and reconciliation, shared decision making and a multidisciplinary approach to patient care? Does the project take a patient-centred approach to meet the RPS guiding principles for Medicines Optimisation? The four principles are: Aim to understand the patient’s experience Evidence based choice of medicines Ensure medicines use is as safe as possible Make medicines optimisation part of routine practice
Patient/ stakeholder involvement	Has there been patient and stakeholder involvement in the design and evaluation of the project?
Ease of adoption	How simple would the project be to replicate - is this something other areas can easily pick up and replicate? Have implementation tools such as business case, incentive scheme etc. been shared? Has the project been sponsored by MEGS?
Costs	Have the potential project costs and potential return on investment of the project been planned and are they clearly stated? This includes staffing costs as well as direct costs.	Are the project costs and potential return on investment of the project clearly stated? This includes staffing costs as well as direct costs.
Overall opinion of the project	Overall impression of the project including of how well it has been written up, how easy the information is to find and understand, quality of the documents included and how easily it can be replicated nationally.
Total score out of 28