Industry-wide collaboration needed to improve homecare medicines services says GPhC

A report on homecare medicines services by the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) has found that further work is needed to ensure patients always receive their medicines from homecare services when they need them.

It comes after a House of Lords public inquiry into such services in June 2023. The inquiry received reports of patients experiencing delays in receiving their medication and getting the wrong medicine – with serious impacts on patients’ health, sometimes resulting in people needing hospital care.

The report ‘Evaluating service provision: a themed review of registered pharmacies providing homecare medicines services’ makes recommendations, including the need for:

• All homecare pharmacies to adopt cross-sector risk management processes with support from the National Homecare Medicines Committee (NHMC) and the National Clinical Homecare Association (NCHA). Hospitals and homecare pharmacies to record and monitor the registration of new patients
• Hospitals and homecare pharmacies to work together and agree on standardised information to be provided to patients
• A review of the availability and use of homecare pharmacy communication platforms to identify key themes on what works well, and find solutions to the challenges that prevent patients and hospitals from accessing them
• A move away entirely from paper-based systems to electronic transfer of prescriptions
• The respective UK national health organisations to facilitate homecare pharmacy teams having access to the same health and clinical systems as other aspects of the patient’s care pathway.

The GPhC review involved inspecting twenty registered pharmacies that were identified as providing homecare medicines services. Each were found to meet all of the GPhC standards, providing assurances they were delivering the services safely and effectively.

However, the review found that homecare medicines services face several challenges, many of which were outside of the immediate control of the pharmacy providing them.

Chief Pharmacy Officer at the General Pharmaceutical Council, Roz Gittins, said:

“We’re urging all organisations involved with the provision of homecare medicines services to consider our recommendations and how they could be implemented across the sector.

“Homecare medicines services are complex and involve various healthcare services and professionals working together to provide a package of care for a patient.

“Our findings highlight the systems pharmacies have developed to reduce the impact of these challenges, but further work is required to ensure patients always receive their medicines when they need them.

“We recognise this requires more industry-wide collaboration and we encourage all organisations involved with the provision of homecare medicines services to support their teams to embrace new and improved ways of working for the benefit of patients.”

Next steps

We will continue to play a key role in ensuring that homecare medicines services meet regulatory standards, prioritising patient safety and service quality.

Through ongoing engagement with stakeholders and our inspections, we remain committed to supporting improvements in governance, accountability, and consistency across the sector.

Next steps include further collaboration with providers and identifying opportunities to enhance regulatory oversight and inspection methodology to drive forward best practice in homecare pharmacy services.

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