Medicines Optimisation Centricity
Is it creating health inequalities?
Medicines optimisation has taken us to the next level from traditional medicines management. It has cemented the importance of medicines and their need to be used effectively in patient care. It has provided the much-needed focus and direction to improve patient care and safety.
However, is it fit for our future needs?
Aspire Pharma initiated and funded a series of workshops run and facilitated by HSJ (previously Wilmington Healthcare). The workshops brought together key NHS and Pharmacy stakeholders to debate and discuss two themes:
Workshop series one
Held in March 2023. This series explored the practicalities of medicine optimisation, sharing best practices to determine “the way forward” to ensuring optimal medicine optimisation. To learn more about the finding of workshop series 1 and to read the ‘The way forward’ white paper, please click here.
Workshop two
Held in July 2024. This workshop explored whether medicines optimisation could be creating health inequalities/inequities. The roundtable offered a chance to reflect on medicines optimisation within the new integrated care landscape. It examined whether it truly achieves its intended goals, or if the current approach actually exacerbates inequalities and negatively impact specific groups within our population.
The paper explores the following topics:
- Existing medicines health inequalities and inequities that patients are experiencing
- What needs to be addressed to reduce these inequalities and inequities, and how can this be achieved?
- The expected impacts of implementing changes into the current system
- How partnerships can help to reduce inequalities
- Identifying the call to action to address these issues
Please use the arrows below to read the full workshop two report.