Medicines management is central to the quality of healthcare. Nearly all patients are given medication as a result of a visit to hospital - 7,000 individual doses are administered daily in a 'typical' hospital. In 2000/01, NHS acute hospitals spent £1.2 billion on medicines, which accounted for 4.6 per cent of total costs. In addition, hospital pharmacy staff cost £255 million. And expenditure on medicines continues to increase; between 1998/99 and 2000/01 the cost of medicines in acute hospitals rose by £260 million, an increase of 28 per cent.
The hospital pharmacy service underpins effective medicines management. A pharmacy department will be involved in not merely the procurement, dispensing and supply of medicines to patients but increasingly in optimising the use of medicines in delivering patient care. Moreover, pharmacy activities are not confined to hospitals; services are often provided to other NHS trusts and organisations within the local health economy. As the range of developmental clinical services provided becomes increasingly varied, so pharmacy becomes a core clinical service in any hospital's delivery of healthcare, a prime function being to make the use of medicines safer
This review is aimed primarily at chief pharmacists and presents the main findings from the national investigation of hospital pharmacy services carried out in 2001 as part of the Acute Hospital Portfolio. Comparative data were collected from 197 out of 199 NHS acute trusts in England and Wales and have been used by local auditors to produce tailored performance assessments for each trust and recommend any necessary further audit work. This review reports the national findings from this data collection exercise, and takes into account any amendments that have resulted from discussions between local auditors and individual trusts.