UK survey of discharge prescriptions, transcribing and development of the hospital pharmacist-prescribing role

Focal points

□A questionnaire survey was distributed to one acute hospital from each UK NHS trust to examine pharmacist discharge prescription transcription services (PDPTS)

□Thirty-six per cent of hospital pharmacy departments (HPD) who responded were offering PDPTS. Prescribing activities included pharmacist prescription amendment (29 per cent), prescribing activity in pre-admission clinics (18 per cent) and re-writing drug charts (16 per cent); 44 per cent did not undertake any prescribing activity

□Typically, the service operated from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday (68.1 per cent), and most frequently serviced the medical directorate (51.1 per cent), followed by the surgical directorate (36.2 per cent); the service was normally funded by the pharmacy department (58.3 per cent), and mainly operated by C and D grade pharmacists

□Typically one or two pharmacists ran the service for their own wards and each produced fewer than five prescriptions per day