A collaboration between community pharmacists and hospitals in Newcastle has delivered "real benefits" to discharged patients, an LPC has said.

The Transfer of Care project, which launched in July, has involved all 194 community pharmacies in the North of Tyne area offering MUR and NMS interventions to patients discharged from the Freeman Hospital and the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle.

The hospital referred more than 200 patients to the service in its first two months, and this figure had risen to 100 patients every month, said Andre Yeung, pharmacist advisor at North of Tyne LPC. 

"They are an enthusiastic bunch of pharmacists here in the north east and we have been very impressed by the response. Community pharmacists understand the importance of these interventions, which fill the gap of leaving hospital and re-entering the community," Mr Yeung said.

The service is funded by the existing NMS and MUR framework but the referrals are managed by a dedicated resource at both hospitals, he told C+D.       

Patients are referred to the service through a specially designed module on the PharmOutcomes IT platform and Mr Yeung said technology had been a "deal breaker" for the service.

"Referrals can be very difficult to make and review unless you've got something electronic that is smoothly liaising between the two sides and pooling the data," he added.

North of Tyne LPC chair Jean Banks told C+D it was important to identify patients who needed extra support. "It is the first time we have been able to target these patients and provide a platform for community pharmacy to get involved," Ms Banks said.

Other NHS trusts in the area had expressed an interest in the scheme and the LPC was going to look at the possibility of creating a business case for the service from the data it had collected, she added.

Christopher Dodd, superintendent at Molineux Pharmacy in Byker which is taking part in the scheme, told C+D that discharged patients benefitted from having a discussion about their new medication.

"The communication between community pharmacy and hospital pharmacy isn't great [but] this service ties people in and gives a more focussed approach," he said.

"It works well but it will take time to build up the number of referrals. It should be routinely done and we should start referring patients to smoking cessation or flu vaccines," he added.

	How closely does your pharmacy work with local hospitals to monitor post-discharge care?