Discharge medicines service is supporting patients coming out of hospital

March 2019 saw the implementation of the Transfer of Care Around Medicines (TCAM) pathway in East Sussex – the first digital portal to connect pharmacy and key secondary care partners, enabling the safe transfer of patients’ medication discharge records and improving the safety of the transfer of care between hospital and community settings.

Since then this new and exciting digital collaboration has continued to significantly improve patient care and safety by reducing unintentional mistakes and delays that can occur when patients transfer between care providers. But more than that, it has been enormously helpful as a precursor to the relatively new discharge medicines service (DMS) which launched on the 15 February 2021.

East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust (ESHT) were the first to pilot TCAM in April 2019, followed by Surrey-based and West Sussex-based trusts supported by Kent, Sussex and Surrey Academic Health Sciences Network (KSS AHSN).

Using the lessons learned and relationships forged with TCAM, KSS AHSN has continued to project manage the set-up of the digital pathway and help embed DMS.

We continue to work with all our acute trusts to increase the DMS referrals into community pharmacy.

The information below shows progress across Sussex and Surrey.

Ashford & St Peters – Live

ESHT – Live

Royal Surrey – Live

Surrey & Boarders Partnership – Live

University Hospitals Sussex West – Live

University Hospitals Sussex East – Live

Epsom & St Helier – Not Live

Queen Victoria – Live

SASH – Not Live

Contractors in areas where the system is live should remember to check every day for referrals and process them in line with their local procedure.


More information