We explored the options for expanding the current New Medicines Service to include other clinical conditions or therapies.
Challenge
The current New Medicines Service (NMS) delivered by community pharmacies includes the following clinical conditions/therapies: asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), Type 2 diabetes, antiplatelet/anticoagulant therapy and hypertension. As part of the Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework five-year deal, it was agreed that the expansion of NMS to other therapeutic areas would be decided in Year 3 (2021/22). The challenge was therefore to develop a detailed options appraisal to feed into upcoming negotiations with the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).
What we did
In October 2020, we worked with the NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSE&I) pharmacy integration team in supporting the Primary Care Strategy and NHS Contracts Group to explore the options for expanding the current NMS to include other clinical conditions/therapies. We approached the project in the following stages:
Stage one – Literature review
- We conducted a rapid literature review and critical appraisal, taking account of evidence of clinical and cost-effectiveness, to seek evaluations of the current service provision and to identify any barriers and enablers to service uptake/engagement.
- We explored the potential conditions/therapies for inclusion in the expansion, for example, statins, antidepressants, Opiods/Gabapentinoids antipsychotics osteoporosis, epilepsy, and Parkinson’s disease.
Stage two – Options appraisal
- We produced a summary of the context, current status and key evidence findings from the literature review.
- We presented the identified evidence-based options for service expansion, including principles of identifying future therapeutic areas, with clearly laid out impact analysis including quality, equality and financial impacts.
Activity
Medicines optimisation
Outcome
We identified the appropriate therapeutic areas that are suitable to be included in the expansion of NMS. Plus, several recommendations to improve service development were made based on the findings from the evaluation exercise.
This work resulted in the significant expansion of the NMS on 1 September 2021.
