PRIMIS at the University of Nottingham has released a Progress Report on the national rollout of PINCER on what is World Patient Safety Day (17thSeptember).
The purpose of the Progress Report is to give an overview of the first 18 months of the national rollout of the pharmacist-led, IT-based intervention, which is designed to reduce clinically important medication errors in primary care (PINCER).
Since 2018, PRIMIS has been working in partnership with all 15 AHSNs in England to implement PINCER within their territories, using the principles of social franchising.
The report shows that, as of 3 April 2020, 130 (68%) CCGs have engaged in the PINCER rollout. A total of 2,430 general practices have uploaded baseline data to the national PINCER comparative analysis service showing that a minimum of 23.35 million patient records have been searched to identify instances of potentially hazardous prescribing using 13 evidence-based prescribing safety indicators.
Analysis of follow-up data shows a reduction in the absolute number of at-risk patients identified in at least one prescribing safety indicator of 13,387 patients (-14.4%). Greatest reductions can be seen for those indicators associated with GI bleed which showed a decrease of 10,559 at-risk patients (-25.9%).
In addition, 1,600+ individuals have been trained to deliver the PINCER intervention through a combination of eLearning tools, online resources and face-to-face action learning set sessions.
Lisa Devine, Programme Manager at KSS AHSN, said that the report shows that where PINCER is being used there is a marked reduction in the number of patients at risk of a clinically important medication error.
“These results are incredibly encouraging, showing that the PINCER initiative can have a marked impact on patient safety. The AHSN Network is now looking at how it can continue to support the roll out of the PINCER tool, and its methodology, so that we can see a sustained, continuous improvement and benefits to patients,” she added.
Since writing the report, PRIMIS is now starting to see an increase in the uptake in PINCER once again:
- numerous PINCER training sessions are booked to be delivered between now and the end of the year. These will be delivered using new online resources including live webinars and self-directed reading.
- a total of 2,586 practices have now uploaded their baseline PINCER data to CHART Online. This is an increase of 156 practices since the beginning of April (when it was 2,430 practices)
- the number of individual patient records searched is now in excess of 24.8 million, an increase of 1.45 million patient records since the beginning of April
