Sefton health commissioners visited Bootle Town Hall to discuss their work around improving medicines safety with local community group, People First Merseyside.

Susanne Lynch, head of medicines management and Geraldine O’Carroll, senior manager commissioning and redesign from Sefton’s two clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), were invited to a meeting of People First Merseyside’s ‘Get Involved Group’.

People First Merseyside is an organisation for people with learning disabilities, managed by people with learning disabilities, that has been supporting adults in Merseyside since 1988.

After hearing an update from the CCG team, members of the Get Involved Group had the chance to ask questions about the CCGs’ Repeat Prescription Ordering Scheme (RPOS) as well as other medicines queries they had.

Speaking after the event, Susanne Lynch said: “These events are a really important part of our work as they allow us to hear from the people who use the services and flag up if we need to do things a little differently in future. RPOS was designed to improve patient safety by reducing the amount of unsupervised medicine people have in their homes and, from the feedback we have had so far, it appears to be doing exactly that.”

Geraldine O’Carroll added: “We are very grateful to People First for inviting us along to what was a really good event and we look forward to continuing to work with the group to improve their experience and awareness of local health services. We are also working with them on the National Programme for Transforming Care for people with learning disabilities and autism.”

The session is part of an ongoing programme of engagement by NHS South Sefton Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) NHS Southport and Formby CCG around their work to improve medicines safety and reduce waste amongst borough patients. It is also a chance to hear feedback from a range of different groups and communities about how well some of their schemes are working for patients.

Anyone who would like to know more about RPOS can follow this link for more information:

http://www.southportandformbyccg.nhs.uk/your-health-and-services/ordering-repeat-prescriptions/