ISCOMAT Work Package 1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Improving the safety and continuity of medicines management at care transitions (The ISCOMAT Programme) Work Package 1
IRAS ID
195799
Contact name
Peter Gardner
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 2 months, 30 days
Research summary
Making using medicines as safe and effective as possible are priorities for patients and healthcare providers. When a patient moves (e.g. from hospital to home) medicine problems are common and planned changes are not always followed through. Those with long-term illnesses taking several medicines are most at risk – especially when medicines have been started or changed in hospital. We aim to improve the use of prescribed medicines when patients move, including reducing harm from medicines. We will study patients with heart failure because they need several medicines, some of which need careful monitoring – making sure doses are increased gradually to the level where they work best. We will work closely with patients and healthcare staff to understand what happens when patients are discharged and use this understanding to develop and test ways of improving how medicines are used. First, we will look at how patients’ medicines are managed at and after discharge in four areas of England. We will watch what happens to patients and interview patients and staff in hospitals, doctors’ surgeries and local pharmacies. We will also look at documents used by patients and staff. From this we will identify examples of good practice. We will later bring together patients and staff to hear our findings and come up with ideas about what might work well in future. In a different work package we will use this information to produce a ‘toolkit’ containing the things staff and patients need to make good practice happen. In this work package we will test whether it is possible to link data held about patients’ medicines and conditions in different databases so that the impact of the toolkit can later be tested in a trial.
REC name
North of Scotland Research Ethics Committee 1
REC reference
16/NS/0018
Date of REC Opinion
12 Feb 2016
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion