{
  "abstract": "Background The Neurodevelopmental service at a tertiary paediatric hospital within the North west, supports a caseload of over 4,000 children and young people (CYP) on regular medication. The team handles diagnosis, medication initiation, ongoing prescribing, and follow-up care until the age of 18.Context In recent years, the number of patients requiring medication has increased significantly. On average, the team issues approximately 1,300 prescriptions per month with the majority being for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). This workload places considerable pressure on clinicians, including non-medical prescribers (NMPs), doctors, and pharmacists.Since October 2023, national shortages of ADHD medications have further strained the service. These shortages have resulted in shorter prescription durations, changes in medication types, brands, and formulations. This leads to increased monitoring of response to treatments and observations (height, weight and blood pressure). Due to high demand and limited resources, clinicians have had limited time to discuss these changes with families, creating challenges for both prescribers and service users. To address these issues, a pharmacy technician role was introduced to provide specialist medication support to the clinical and administrative teams, as well as to CYP, parents and guardians. Initially focusing on providing counselling and dedicated pill swallowing clinics. The specialist pharmacy technician also attends a school clinic to identify patients needing additional medication-related guidance.Governance and service improvement were also key areas of focus for this role with the move from paper FP10 prescribing to electronic prescribing alongside digitalisation of other parts of the prescription service. Conclusion Families and healthcare professionals’ have benefited alike from the introduction of the pharmacy technician. Both have provided positive feedback highlighting how the single point of contact has improved patient experience and ease of access to knowledge and expertise. Nursing staff can focus on clinical care during review appointments, as medication-related queries can now be redirected. Patient compliance and access to medication has improved, particularly through support for swallowing solid dosage forms. Patient observations are now proactively being monitoring and acted on to avoid delays in the prescription process.Additionally, the pharmacist in the service is now able to dedicate more time to complex clinical and strategic responsibilities.The post holder has been vital in implementing an audit process and working on adapting the incident dashboard to allow review of trends to prevent further errors. Finally, by bringing another perspective to the working group the post holder has been vital in the roll out of the electronic FP10 system Cleo ensuring the system works for service users and staff alike. In the future, expanding the pharmacy technician role could lead to increased clinical time at medication initiation appointments as counselling around the medication could be provided by the technician meaning more patients could be seen and service delivery would improve. Time could be spent on making medication resources more suitable to CYPs and families with neurodevelopmental needs improving their understanding and improving outcomes. Medication safety would improve and reduction in adverse effects from medication as they will be managed more closely.",
  "authors": [
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Alder Hey Children’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Stephanie Corke"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Alder Hey Children’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Rachel Rowley"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Alder Hey Children’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Andrew Lilley"
    }
  ],
  "title": "P45 Development and evaluation of pharmacy technician roles in paediatric neurodevelopmental services",
  "uid": "fe6f6cb3-070b-52e6-9184-5125c2b49ec6"
}