Interprofessional learning for dental and pharmacy professionals: learning together changes how you work together.

Can an interprofessionally designed and facilitated learning event change the way professionals understand each other's roles, enable them to better work with each other and improve patient care? Pharmacy and dental professionals are contractors to the NHS, providing services to the public. The way both professions are funded encourages them to generally work in isolation from the wider NHS, in contrast to other areas of healthcare and NHS systems. This study explores how working collaboratively at all stages of design, development, facilitation and engagement of a learning event impacts on the professionals taking part. It also explores how learning interprofessionally can change the way dental and pharmacy professionals work together, suggesting this way of learning is beneficial to improving working relationships between the sectors.The study explored the ways that shared learning between professions could be approached and encouraged. Pharmacy professionals expressed that they felt more informed and confident giving dental advice to patients. Dental professionals recognised that pharmacy professionals could help support and manage patients. All professionals could see the importance of multidisciplinary working to improve understanding of the other professionals' role. The workshops showed that shared learning is an important aspect to help engage and integrate healthcare systems.

Optimizing medicine use for people who are homebound: an evaluation of a pilot domiciliary Medicine Use Review (dMUR) service in England.

BACKGROUND: As global life expectancy increases, older people with chronic diseases are being required to manage multiple and complex medicine regimes. However, polypharmacy raises the risk of medicine-related problems and preventable hospital admissions. To improve medicine use, English community pharmacies are commissioned to deliver Medicines Use Reviews (MURs), which are typically delivered from the pharmacy. People who are homebound rarely receive the service. This paper describes the uptake and impact of a pilot project that seeks to provide domiciliary Medicines Use Reviews (dMURs). METHODS: Participating pharmacists collected data on their dMUR activity over a 12-month period. Outcome measures (eg, adherence, side-effects, pharmacist assessment of preventable hospital admissions) were recorded. Pharmacists were also invited to submit written testimonies of their experiences of undertaking dMURs. RESULTS: Out of 433 possible pharmacies eligible to take part in the pilot, 186 pharmacies expressed an interest, and 91 actively engaged in providing the dMUR service. The total number of dMURs performed were 1092 (mean number performed by each pharmacy was 12). Two thirds of patients reported problems and concerns about side-effects and missed doses regarding their medicines. Pharmacists' assessment to prevent hospital admissions found that over one-third of the dMURs had contributed towards preventing either a possible or likely emergency hospital admission. Twelve pharmacists' testimonies were submitted providing context of the problems patients faced with medicines. DISCUSSION: dMURs are feasible and improve patient medicines use. The results indicate that dMUR potentially prevents hospital admissions and readmissions. dMURs offer an opportunity to support the self-care agenda and ensure homebound patients can successfully manage their medicines.