Wednesday 17 May | 11:00-12:15

Format: Presentation
Stream: Safety
Content filters: n/a

Chair: Henrik Villasden, Managing Director, Medicin.dk

PART ONE – Medicines optimisation – a change package to support medication without harm

Medicines optimisation and medicines safety practices can drive patient safety and quality. However, many healthcare systems do not have well-developed processes or measures to address these. Medicine safety practices are often disparate and varied and implementation is also a challenge.

The presenters will share a person-centred systems approach that can be implemented across primary, secondary and community care settings. The approach is underpinned by measurement, demonstrating the efficiency and effectiveness of the interventions.

A package of tools and resources to support change will be shared, assisting healthcare professionals, patients and healthcare systems to drive medicines optimisation and medicines safety at scale.

After this session, participants will be able to:

• Implement a person-centred medicines optimisation approach to enhance patient safety and quality


• Access medicines safety practices/activities to support a systems approach to medicines safety – and take away tools for use in their own setting


• Develop a measurement plan to demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of the interventions

Gill Smith, Kaizen Kata, Northern Ireland

Anita Hogg, Regional Medicines Optimisation Innovation Centre (MOIC), Northern Ireland

Mike Scott, Regional Medicines Optimisation Innovation Centre (MOIC), Northern Ireland


PART TWO – Creating a context for improvement: learning from a national medicines safety initiative

Context, otherwise known as the environment in which QI projects are carried out, can make or break improvement work.  When large scale improvement initiatives are considered, the interplay between ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ can have a profound impact.

In this session we will share learning from a national safety initiative, which reduced high-risk prescribing of methotrexate tablets by 39% across England and by 54% in a cohort of 8 high-prescribing Integrated Care Systems (ICSs).

We will tell this story from a ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom up’ perspective, drawing on key context theory before sharing our experience of what helped and hindered. After this session, participants will be able to:

• Understand what context is and the key components to pay attention to for successful improvement work


• Understand how the QI method can be applied to large scale quality or safety issues


• Understand the interplay between ‘top down’ and ‘bottom up’ approaches and how both often are needed to bring about improvement

James Innes, NHS England, England

Ruth Dales, NHS England, England