We had another successful year in 2020/21 at the Pan Mersey Area Prescribing Committee promoting the safe and efficient use of medicines and completing a series of medicines and policy reviews.

Background

The Pan Mersey APC is a professional group consisting of GPs, pharmacists and other key healthcare professionals. It seeks to identify and champion the best use of medicines taking into account cost effectiveness, quality, equity and above all, patient safety.

The Committee is responsible for making recommendations of medicines, especially high cost medicines, across the Merseyside and Warrington footprint.

Action

We have been working in collaboration with the APC providing medicines care system support.

We created a website to offer national and regional information on COVID-specific medicines issues.

We led phased reintroduction of Pan Mersey APC and subgroups after a COVID-19 pause (March- June 2020).

NHS Midlands and Lancashire’s medicines management team member was involved in discussions around future of Regional Medicines Optimisation Committee (RMOC).

We had the APC Conflicts of Interest policy and updated Declarations of Interest form approved.

Impact

147,879 visits made to APC website in 2020/21 (266,847 page views).

423,904 visits made to Pan Mersey formulary.

Cheshire and Merseyside antimicrobial review group completed review of full primary care antimicrobial guide, shared for localisation and adoption.

22 new medicines reviews and policy statements, 11 National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) technology appraisal (TA) reviews, and 11 policy statements and RAG recommendations produced by new medicines subgroup.

8 policy statements, 8 prescribing guidelines, and 6 formulary amendment recommendations produced by formulary and guidelines subgroup.

3 prescribing support documents, 5 new shared care frameworks and 6 shared care framework reviews produced by shared care subgroup. Expiry date extended for 16 documents.

1 guideline and 5 formulary updates produced by safety subgroup.