Medicine Optimisation and Pharmacy team looks back on the last 12 months

Our Medicine Optimisation and Pharmacy Procurement (MOPP) category team has published their 2020/2021 end of year report which highlights the team’s key achievements over the past year, as well as their goals for the next 12 months.

The primary aim of the team is to promote alignment of medicines optimisation across the whole London health economy, and to try to deliver projects at scale at pan-London level to prevent duplication of effort.

Along with the wider NHS system, the MOPP category team has faced unprecedented challenges over the past 12 months due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite this, the team has continued to support the London healthcare system and supported clinical teams within local health economies to continue with crucial frontline patient care. The team’s key achievements over the past year include:

• Providing pharmacy support for care homes across London to ensure that medicines supply and medicines optimisation could continue and be maintained for care homes during the pandemic
• Supporting and promoting the uptake of best value medicines across the London health economy, such as biosimilars with significant financial savings
• Initiating and establishing the pan-London formulary project on behalf of the London ICSs to support the reduction in unwarranted variation in prescribing
• Co-ordinating key projects and activities to ensure that medicines supply, particularly critical medicines for patients, could continue during the peaks of the pandemic
• Delivering an ICS board level dashboard for medicines optimisation for all of the ICSs in London
• Maintaining the RightBreathe inhaler portal, especially during the pandemic to support with the prescribing and use of inhaled respiratory medicines

Looking forward to 2021/2022, the team plans to build on the savings they have supported the system to achieve in previous years. The team also plans to focus on sustainability and social values through key outputs of their work by ensuring that this is covered in the frameworks.

Jas Khambh, Chief Pharmacist and Clinical Director for Medicines Optimisation and Pharmacy Procurement at NHS London Procurement Partnership, said: “The MOPP team has delivered key projects successfully throughout the past year by excellent engagement and collaborative working with local medicines optimisation teams within the London integrated care systems.

“We hope to continue this collaborative way of working during 2021/2022 and to build on our work plan further through our MOPP Board and specialist working groups. Thank you to everyone who has contributed and helped to shape and inform our work and projects.”

If you are an NHS staff member who would like to read the full report, please email Jas.Khambh@lpp.nhs.uk.