Four NHS boards have been picked to take part in an "innovative" Scottish pilot that will see pharmacists taking over responsibility from GPs for monitoring patients on high-risk medicines.

NHS Fife, NHS Grampian, NHS Highland and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde had successfully passed a "tough selection process" to take part in the collaborative project between community pharmacists and GPs, said Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS), an organisation that supports healthcare professionals to use medicines effectively.

Nine health boards had applied to take part in the Scottish Patient Safety Programme in Primary Care, which will run from July for two years, and the standard of applications had been "very high", HIS said on Wednesday (June 18).

The project will include each NHS Board selecting a high-risk medicine and trying to improve how safely it is prescribed, monitored and dispensed, says HIS	More on high-risk medicines Scotland's pharmacists to take over monitoring patients on high-risk medicines 10 things you need to know about high-risk medicines Pharmacy key to spotting toxicity in patients on high-risk meds
	Programme improvement advisor Jill Gilles said HIS had been keen to get a "good geographical spread" of health boards so "the tools and interventions will be tested in all primary care pharmacy settings".

HIS was in the process of recruiting a pharmacist as national clinical lead for the programme in time for an induction event in August, it said.

NHS Education for Scotland and the University of Strathclyde were working in partnership with HIS to evaluate the programme's "ground-breaking work", HIS added.

In April, HIS announced it had been awarded £450,000 from charity the Health Foundation to set up the programme, which aimed to reduce prescribing errors by "forging closer links" between community pharmacies and other primary care settings.

The project will include each NHS Board selecting a high-risk medicine and trying to improve how safely it is prescribed, monitored and dispensed, HIS said.

At the time, the health foundation said pharmacists in each area would be given best practice guidance on how to compare patient discharge prescriptions with dispensed medicines and how to communicate any errors to GPs. They will also monitor how often they are identifying discrepancies and how these are resolved by talking to GPs and patients.

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