RPS Conference 2010, Abstracts 2010 - Royal Pharmaceutical Society

44
Medicines Information to Support Patients’ Information Needs During Pandemic ‘Flu.
Anne Joshua 1 , Wynn Pevreal 1,2
1 NHS Direct, London, United Kingdom, 2 UKMI - Northwick Park Hospital, London, United
Kingdom
Focal points
• During the recent Flu Pandemic, NHS Direct was required to find an efficient
way of providing up to date validated medicines information to meet the urgent
and rapidly changing needs of patients and the general public.
• Medicine information fact sheets, were produced to provide a reliable and
effective method of communicating information.
• The number of enquiries completed by NHS Direct without onward referral to
external NHS health services using the oseltamivir, zanamivir and swine flu
vaccine fact sheets increased by 22% at the peak for health information calls
and aided the completion of up to 50% of symptomatic influenza calls.
Introduction
In the first week of the pandemic approximately 17,000 extra calls were received to NHS Direct,
peaking at nearly 63,000 during one week in July.
It became clear that very little information was available in a form that could readily and
efficiently support patients and healthcare professionals to make decisions about their influenza
treatment and prophylaxis options. Objective: To find a way of meeting the urgent and rapidly
changing medicines information needs of callers when the usual service models are no longer
in place.
Method
In April 2009 UKMI (UK Medicines Information service) were asked to prepare reference fact
sheets for oseltamivir (Tamiflu ® ) and zanamivir (Relenza ® ). Final drafts were reviewed by the
NHS Direct Clinical Panel (1,2) before they were posted on NHS Direct’s staff intranet and the
National electronic Library for Medicine (NeLM).
An additional fact sheet was prepared for the Pandemrix ® , and Celvapan ® vaccines in
September 2009.(2) All the fact sheets were continually updated throughout the Pandemic and
made available to various other NHS organisations including the National Pandemic Flu Service
(NPFS) and SHA pharmacy leads.
The effectiveness of the fact sheets was determined by the ability of NHS Direct to complete
calls without onward referral to UKMI, GPs, community pharmacists or other health
professionals. A random sample of 100 NHS Direct pharmacist advisor calls were analysed to
identify most frequently asked topics. Unstructured feedback from users was collated via the
NPFS health professional email service and weekly SHA Pharmacy Lead teleconferences.
Results
When all the fact sheets were in place, the number of calls for swine flu health information that
NHS Direct was able to complete without referral rose from 6% at the start of the outbreak to
28% in September. It is estimated that up to half of all enquiries requiring flu symptom
assessment and self care advice were supported by the antiviral fact sheets. From a sample of
pharmacist advisor calls analysed the most frequently asked questions were about: antiviral