ICB-Led Medication Training Offer for Adult Social Care Staff, including Medication Champions Training (2025)

Bedfordshire, Luton & Milton Keynes ICB – Care Home Medicines Optimsation Team

Project summary

The Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes (BLMK) ICB Care Home Medicines Optimisation Team consists of 4 pharmacists and 4 pharmacy technicians, supporting 119? CQC registered care homes across four ‘places’ within the ICB. The role of the team is to promote safety, quality and safeguarding around medicines in the care homes, supporting the avoidance of medication errors, safety incidents and potential hospital admissions in this vulnerable cohort of almost 6000 individuals.

The team recognised there was variation across Adult Social Care (ASC) services with regards to standards of medication training and an objective was set to ensure all ASC staff were enabled to have access to high quality, standardised medication training. Whilst the team’s remit covers care homes only, the decision was made to extend the training opportunity to all ASC within the ICB, including home care and community-based care staff, to ensure medication training opportunities were equitable and of a consistent high standard in all settings.

The team undertook an extensive mapping and scoping exercise (see attachment) of existing local and national medication training courses and identified gaps and opportunities for additional training for care staff to enhance and embed learning and ensure medicines safety was optimised within Adult Social Care. Local Authorities, ICB Quality Improvement nurses, Enhanced Health in Care home leads, and other stakeholders were involved in discussions around the local medication training needs of ASC staff.

To meet the vision of standardised medication training for ASC staff, the care home team proposed to create a bespoke medication training programme in line with NICE guidelines and CQC regulations. Following several ideas sessions, the team came up with the concept of developing and delivering an ICB led innovative 3-tier medication training offer, starting with foundation and ‘step up’ medication training for all ASC staff, and progressing to Medication Champion Training for care home staff. The ultimate vision is to have at least one ICB endorsed Medication Champion in each care home within the area.

The 3-tier Medication Offer can be seen in detail on the attached flyers that were used to promote the programme.

Tier 1 - The team were very keen to use PrescQIPP eLearning as Tier 1 foundation training and presented a business case to the Senior Leadership Team, which led to the ICB funding the PrescQIPP Medicines Use in Care Homes Courses 1, 2 and 3.

• PrescQIPP Medicines Use in Care Homes Courses 1,2 & 3 – fully funded by BLMK ICB
• *PrescQIPP Managing medicines for adults receiving social care in the community Courses 1 & 2 – previously funded by Health Education England (HEE).

*Following submission of a further business case to our Senior Leadership team, we now have some funding, albeit limited funding for courses 1 & 2 of the ‘Managing medicines for adults receiving social care in the community’. 

Tier 2 – This ‘step up’ training was delivered as 6 bimonthly virtual bitesize medication training sessions by the ICB care home team. The topic for each session focused on delivering training on topics where gaps had been identified during the mapping process, as well as embedding local guidance and procedures. The training sessions were written exclusively by the team and included case studies/exemplar practice, interactive quizzes, and time for questions. The Tier 2 sessions are a continuing rolling programme each year.

Tier 3 – Medication Champion Training – this full day face to face training involved the team creating a bespoke workbook which focused on how care home staff could ensure best practice around medication in care homes. Tier 3 Medication Champion training was made available to all care home staff responsible for medication, with the criteria that the attendees must have completed all 3 PrescQIPP Tier 1 Courses before attending, and the expectation was that they should have attended as many of the Tier 2 sessions as possible. Tier 3 Medication Champions sessions are planned each year across the four ‘places’ in the ICB, as well as facilitating quarterly forums.

The training offer was rolled out in early 2023 with the programme of Tier 2 sessions running from April 2023. The ongoing interest, uptake and attendance is indicative of the appetite and need for targeted medication training in this sector. Since January 2023, over 2300 PrescQIPP courses have been completed by ASC staff in BLMK ICB, 12 Tier 2 sessions have been delivered, with over 3400 attendances overall, and six Medication Champion sessions have been convened, giving rise to 97 ICB Medication Champions across the ICB.