Reducing health inequalities is a key priority for the NHS at both a national and system level. The approach defines a target population – the 'Core20PLUS' – and identifies '5' focus clinical areas requiring accelerated improvement.
Brent is relatively more deprived on the education, skills, and training domain in comparison to the rest of England. This is also true of the health deprivation and disability domain. The Brent Health Matters (BHM) programme aims to reduce inequalities in Brent and our objective for entering the awards is to raise awareness and highlight the key impact pharmacists have made in reaching this objective. Pharmacists play a crucial role in supporting people to get the most from their medicines and keep well.
Showcasing the invaluable and integral role pharmacists have in reducing health inequalities and improving access to care. We hope to inspire, encourage and motivate healthcare professionals to embed small changes into their daily practice as we know small changes in collaboration can have a huge impact. Furthermore, we feel that the rewarding nature of having an impact on population health itself fuels the workforce to do even more ground-breaking work in this crucial workstream. Our goal is to reduce health inequalities, bridging the gap between healthcare professionals, social care and the public.
We strive to build relationships with patients who do not engage with healthcare services. We conduct holistic reviews, screening for other determinants of health inequalities and complete referrals to the appropriate professionals as required. As pharmacists, we have a niche role; conducting domiciliary structured medication reviews (SMRs). The impact of pharmacists within the team is greatly received; '100% agreed pharmacists added value'. In 20 months, 180 patients reviewed with a total potential saving of approximately £90,000 through medicines optimisation and admission avoidance. Moreover, we are leading a Quality Improvement Project to increase the number of SMR referrals that we get directly from GP practices and local community teams.
Current systems in place for SMR referrals (from nurses within the BHM clinical team and community outreach events) needed to be streamlined as numbers were rather low and, furthermore, did not reflect the best use of our skillset. Implementing several change ideas, we hope to drive referral numbers up and also increase quality of the referrals to the pharmacy team, whereby we can help Brent residents with problematic polypharmacy and better management of their long-term conditions.
