A team at the University of Nottingham has been chosen from hundreds of applicants to represent the Midlands and East region in a prestigious competition to mark the NHS’s 70th birthday.
As regional champion in the ‘Excellence in Primary Care’ category, the Division of Primary Care in the University’s School of Medicine will now vie with other regional winners from across England for a national award to be presented at a special ceremony in the Palace of Westminster in July.
Led by Professor Tony Avery, the Division of Primary Care has been nominated for making safety improvements to the way medicines have been prescribed by GPs over the past 20 years.
Their achievements include:
- Creating PINCER – an IT-based improvement tool that is helping more than 350 surgeries across the East Midlands to prescribe medicines safely
- Creating a Patient Safety Toolkit that’s hosted on the website of the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) and has been accessed more than 10,000 times since 2015
- Working with RCGP to ensure there’s a greater focus on safe prescribing during GP training and assessment.
The team was nominated by Nottingham South MP Lilian Greenwood.
Professor Avery said: “We are delighted to have been nominated for this award, and everyone in the team is pleased that our work to improve patient safety has been recognised.”
Ken Deacon, medical director for NHS England in the North Midlands, said: “This team’s work has made an important contribution to improving patient care. By preventing prescribing errors, they are helping to ensure that the healthcare system is safe and effective.
“They are worthy regional champions and I congratulate them on their achievement.”
All the champions will now be invited to the national awards ceremony, which will be held on July 4, the day before the NHS’s 70th birthday.
The ceremony, to be hosted by Dr Sara Kayat, NHS GP and TV doctor best known for This Morning, Celebrity Island with Bear Grylls, and GPs: Behind Closed Doors.
The regional champions will go forward to a final stage of judging by a panel including leaders of Royal Colleges, the Unison trade union, and the Patients Association – collectively representing millions of health and care workers and patients.
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