Multi-Disciplinary Team Pharmacists

West Kent Primary Care employ a team of pharmacists to support the work of multidisciplinary teams across West Kent – these are our MDT pharmacists, and they look after our most frail and complex patient population. Each GP/Primary Care Network in West Kent has a multidisciplinary healthcare meeting every two weeks to discuss patients referred in from a variety of sources (GP, district nurses, social services, etc). These meetings allow the team to come together to agree an individualised plan to meet each patient’s immediate health and psychosocial needs and help to break down communication boundaries between services to ensure continuity of care.  The aim of the MDT is to enable patients to manage their conditions in the future and reduce their risk of crisis such as carer breakdown, falls and hospital admissions, along with improving their overall quality of life.

During the meetings pharmacists will advise the GP and wider healthcare team around medicines management for these patients. After the MDT discussion, part of the action plan may be that a pharmacist visits individual patients to discuss their medication, their compliance and explore any side effects. The role of the MDT pharmacist is to support practices in the management of complex patients and spend time with patients ensuring they understand their medicines and health conditions. Following a consultation, the MDT pharmacists will discuss any suggested changes with the patient’s own GP and update their care records as appropriate. With the patient’s consent, they can also refer on to other services such as physiotherapy or nursing if required.

Other health and social care services can also refer complex, vulnerable and housebound patients directly to the service to be reviewed by our MDT pharmacists (referral forms can be obtained by searching ‘MDT pharmacy’ on DORIS). For any questions regarding this service please e-mail westkentprimarycare.federation@nhs.net. The service is operational Monday – Friday 09:00 – 17:00.

The team are working to develop the service with an emphasis on pro-active care -networking with GP surgeries, frailty wards and community hospitals to provide an effective, safe, and collaborative service to our community.