Devon-wide NHS project up for national award
A Devon-wide project which hopes to save the NHS time and money while ensuring patient safety has been shortlisted for a national award
The scheme simplifies the process under which trained staff such as nurses or pharmacists can give medicines or vaccinations without the need for a GP prescription.
Until now, there have been a whole range of different processes (known as Patient Group Directions) across Devon – 17 for vaccinations alone. But these have been replaced by a single working framework for clinicians, pharmacists and NHS managers to use when writing these documents.
It has been achieved by the Patient Group Direction Virtual Review Panel set up between Northern, Eastern and Western Devon Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and South Devon and Torbay Clinical Commissioning Group over the past 18 months.
The scheme is one of 20 projects to reach the final of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Shared Learning Awards 2014. It will now form part of a Shared Learning poster display at the NICE conference.
In her letter to the two CCGs, Val Moore, guidelines implementation programme director with NICE, said: "The joint project was highlighted as an example for best practice on the NICE website for embracing the new NHS and challenging the way it works.”
Richard Croker, Head of Medicines Optimisation (Northern and Eastern localities) Clinical Effectiveness and Medicines Optimisation with NEW Devon CCG, said: “To have our project showcased at the NICE Shared Learning Awards is great news. It is a reflection of all the hard work the two CCGs have put in to make our work more efficient, seamless and cost-effective.”
Mr Croker said that during the days of the Primary Care Trusts three PGDs were required in Devon for each treatment.
When the NHS was separated into commissioning and providing organisations NEW Devon and South Devon and Torbay CCGs decided to work together to better harmonise their work and make the PGD process more efficient.
The two organisations created a virtual working environment so GPs, pharmacists and managers would not spend hours driving to meetings to write and review PGDs.
Lorna Collingwood-Burke, Deputy Chief Nursing Officerwith NEW Devon CCG and the chair of the virtual review panel, said: “It is important for our two organisations to be as efficient as possible.
“Devon is a very large place, but thanks to the use of technology we can write and review PGDs in real time without spending hours on the road.
“The creation of a single of PGD for the whole of Devon means we only have to do it once when three were necessary in the past.
“Our virtual review panel means we save time and money for the NHS while still guaranteeing that we have a single but much better PGD document.
“It also means that if changes are needed they can be done on the spot without the need for further meetings.”
Mr Croker said the creation of the PGD virtual review panel, which uses tools such as teleconferencing and webconferencing for sharing documents in real time, is saving the two CCGs thousands of pounds a year in staff travelling costs and about 20 working-days worth of time.
Iain Roberts, lead medicines optimisation pharmacist at SD&T CCG said: “This is a really thorough process and it serves as a great example of working together across the NHS"
Dr Tim Burke, chair of the NEW Devon CCG also praised the scheme, he said: “This is a really excellent showcase for what we can do working imaginatively and differently – congratulations to all involved.”
The NICE website describe the collaborative work between the two CCGs as: “This is a good example of embracing the 'new' NHS.
“It challenges our usual way of working, looks for opportunities to work collaboratively and looks for ways to allow technology to improve the effectiveness and efficiency in ways of working.”
