ISCOMAT Work Package 3 - A feasibility study

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    Improving the safety and continuity of medicines management at care transitions (The ISCOMAT Programme) Work Package 3 - A feasibility study to implement and refine the Medicines at Transitions Toolkit

  • IRAS ID

    222474

  • Contact name

    David Alldred

  • Contact email

    d.p.alldred@leeds.ac.uk

  • Sponsor organisation

    Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

  • Duration of Study in the UK

    0 years, 10 months, 13 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) medicines 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 test the feasibility of an intervention 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 have worked closely with patients and healthcare staff to understand what happens when patients are discharged and patients and staff in four areas have developed components of the intervention, which is a ‘Medicines and Transitions Toolkit’ (MaTT). The Toolkit has four main components:

    1 A patient-held 'My Medicines Toolkit'
    2 A transfer of patients discharge medicines list to community pharmacy
    3 A medicines review by community pharmacy with the patient after discharge
    4 A staff training package about the intervention and about care transfers.

    We now aim to implement the MaTT in three health economies to assess the feasibility of delivering it, its acceptability with staff and patients and devise a model of assessing its economic impact. This is being done in advance of a planned randomised, controlled trial. We will do this through training staff to use it and implementing questionnaire and qualitative interviews with patients and staff.

  • REC name

    Yorkshire & The Humber - Bradford Leeds Research Ethics Committee

  • REC reference

    17/YH/0128

  • Date of REC Opinion

    28 Apr 2017

  • REC opinion

    Further Information Favourable Opinion