PQS: HSJ Award recognises patient safety work of the community pharmacy sector

Earlier this week, Community Pharmacy England, NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care won the ‘Patient Safety Team of the Year’ Award at the Health Service Journal (HSJ) Patient Safety Awards. This award was for the Pharmacy Quality Scheme (PQS) patient safety work that community pharmacy teams have participated in.

The entry was based on five of the medicines safety audits that have been carried out in PQS (the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs audit; the anticoagulant audit; the medicines safety audit (lithium, methotrexate, amiodarone and phenobarbital); the TARGET antibiotic checklist review; and the TARGET Treating Your Infection leaflets review).

The judges were impressed with the widespread impact and outcomes of these audits; some of the statistics used to demonstrate this included:

• Around 9,000 pharmacies took part in each audit;
• 600,000 patients prescribed high risk medicines have been screened by pharmacy teams carrying out audits as part of PQS;
• Clinical advice has been given 385,000 times to improve medicines safety; and
• Pharmacy teams have identified 90,000 people at sufficiently high risk to require referral/clinical intervention.

Further information on the outcomes of the above audits and other outcomes of the scheme can be found on our PQS outcomes page.

Commenting on the award, Alastair Buxton, Director of NHS Services at Community Pharmacy England, said:

“This was a great opportunity to showcase the patient safety work that community pharmacy teams across England have been involved in as part of PQS and demonstrate the powerful outcomes of this work.

“The HSJ Awards programme is a high-profile platform to showcase patient safety work and the achievements of all those who entered; we’re delighted that the work of the community pharmacy sector and the team who work hard behind the scenes on PQS have been recognised as a winner in the HSJ Awards.

“The community pharmacy sector should be extremely proud of the contribution that they have made to patient safety as part of PQS, as well as the important role they have in patient safety on a day-to-day basis.”