Medicines optimisation and pharmaceutical care are both terms used across the UK to address the problems associated with sub-optimal medication use and to ensure patients are ‘getting the most out of, and making the best use of, medicines’. This is a core role for pharmacists and their support teams and encompasses all aspects of medicines use including:
- decisions about which medicines are chosen to treat which conditions, in which patient groups and settings
- how medicines are supplied
- how medicines are prescribed and accessed
- how patients actually use, understand and experience medicines in the context of their lives.
Aspects of the patient experience, medicines safety, the delivery of effective outcomes and integration between professional boundaries and health care settings is vital for successful optimisation of medicines.
Our Medicines Optimisation and Pharmaceutical Care projects:
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Better Targeting of Inhaled Corticosteroids in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
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Prescribing, consumption and monitoring of Direct Oral Anticoagulants in elderly patients (<75 years) with Atrial Fibrillation
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The use of patient-held information about medication to support medicines optimisation (the PHIMed study)
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Developing a person-centred discrete choice experiment to promote shared decision making in the patient-pharmacist interaction
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Trends in Opioid Prescribing and Associated Resource Utilisation in Wales (TOPAS)
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Exploring the Medication Related Experiences of Adults with Learning Disabilities
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A qualitative study of the barriers and enablers to administration of supportive therapy closer to home for breast cancer patients
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Do adult patients with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) have altered pharmacokinetic profiles to commonly used anti-infectives: caspofungin, posaconazole and voriconazole?
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The Potential Medicines Optimisation Role of Pharmacy for Young People with Long-term Conditions
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Medication Management in People with Dementia in the Community
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To Identify Barriers in Medication Adherence
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Examining community pharmacists’ role in relation to the use of topical corticosteroids
See more about our strategy on Medicines Optimisation and Pharmaceutical Care and for older projects see our Medicines Optimisation and Pharmaceutical Care project archive.