Our success in communication excellence awards
23 Jul 2008
A pilot project run by NHS Direct and the Evelina Children’s Hospital in London, has won the 2008 Ask About Medicines Award for ‘Excellence in Improving Communication between healthcare professionals and patients or medicine users.’
The Information Prescription pilot was designed to allow medicine prescriptions to generate the offer of further information in the form of an ‘information prescription’ from the Children’s Hospital and five community pharmacies around the UK.
Information Prescriptions
Parents were asked to tick a box on the information prescription from their pharmacist. The prescription allowed parents to receive information about:
- their child’s medical condition,
- details of support groups for the condition,
- medicine guides and information,
- information about adverse (bad) reactions to medicines and what to do if their child experienced such a reaction,
- guidance for parents if their child missed a dose of a medicine, and
- what to do if the condition got worse.
The information prescriptions were passed to NHS Direct via email or fax. The relevant information was compiled and posted to the parents via email or post within 24-48 hours.
Working In Partnership with Evelina Hospital
NHS Direct’s associate director of Pharmacy, Anne Joshua said:
“We are delighted to be winners for the second year running. The whole project was one of team work and partnership with Evelina Children’s Hospital and the community pharmacies involved in the pilot. The project demonstrated an easy way for pharmacists to provide a personalised information prescription directly in the format of choice for parents caring for young children. The feedback from parents was that the service provided valuable support and reassurance about medicines at a time when sometimes there is too much information and it is difficult to find what is important for your child."
