This was a joint project between County Durham CCG, County Durham and Darlington Foundation Trust and the Durham and Darlington Area Local Pharmaceutical Committee. The project was funded by the NE AHSN.
A task and finish group made up of community, hospital, CCG and GP practice pharmacists developed the content and then assisted with delivery of a series of 4 virtual educational webinars to support de-prescribing in primary care. These webinars aimed to upskill primary care prescribers and practice based pharmacists locally regarding de-prescribing in certain key therapeutic areas (e.g. cardiovascular, falls, pain, kidneys). They gave practical advice and case-based discussion around each topic supported by evidence base. The webinar slide set was then adapted so that it could be utilised by other CCGs as a backbone to their own local education sessions.
A face-to-face engagement event was also held targeted at primary care and community pharmacists. This summarised the information within the webinars and aimed to encourage engagement in this agenda and raise awareness of current work being undertaken within primary care locally.
The educational webinars were well attended and many of the attendees took part in the full series of webinars. The majority of attendees were practice-based pharmacists, with some ANPs, GPs and community pharmacists. Feedback was very positive, and examples were given of positive patient outcomes resulting from the knowledge gained during the sessions.
The engagement session was less well attended, due in part to the timing as it was held towards the middle of March just as COVID-19 started to hit. However there was lots of discussion and the content was well received.
Ongoing monitoring of prescribing in certain areas e.g. opioids have seen reductions in both items and cost, however these could be due to multiple factors and work within the CCG to reduce prescribing. Therefore it is difficult to quantify the savings that are directly related to this project.
The project aimed to increase understanding and awareness of polypharmacy to implement a behavioural change in prescribers and primary care clinicians, and this could take a long time to see measurable results.
