Sussex ICS Designated Prescribing Practitioner workforce strategic development and expansion

NHS Sussex Health and Care ICS

Background

This project’s key focus is developing a vision and implementing a strategy for increasing prescriber supervision, the Designated Prescriber Practitioner (DPP) workforce, with a multi-professional aspect, to support the Trainee Pharmacy workforce in Sussex.

The emphasis is on the training and supervision of Non-Medical Prescribing (NMP) practice, and to offer ongoing supervision guidance for newly qualified NMP Pharmacists.

This strongly aligns with the HEE London and SE Pharmacy team 2022/23 business priorities of Quality in Education and Training, and the NHS People Plan and NHS Long Term Plan priorities for pharmacy workforce, education, and training across London, Kent, Surrey, and Sussex.

Project Aims

The proposal of this project is based on collaboration with stakeholders from Pharmacy teams, Medicines Optimisation, secondary, community, primary care, mental health providers, ambulance services, hospices across Sussex, involving health care professionals from pharmacy, nursing, AHP backgrounds.

Key points:

To understand how many potential DPPs are in the system,

Scoping to identify active prescribers,

Create a register of DPPs which can be accessed and utilised across organisations with a multi professional DPP inclusion.

Create DPP leads within the ICS, working with and supporting the DPP workforce, to enable maximising current potential of trainee support and contribute to future resilience development.

Project Objectives

Employing as a secondment 3 x 0.4 WTE Band 8a DPP leads, with an overall project lead and two area leads to collaborate on different aspects of the projects, and to reach into the versatile areas of population needs in Sussex with a strong commitment of reducing health inequalities.

The vision is successful implementation of a DPP dashboard that is sustainable and a replicable framework. Using the dashboard and analysing DPP availability and clinical specialty, the DPP leads can orchestrate tailored support for pharmacy trainees by also brokering access to (rotating) placements in a variety of clinical settings.

Expected Outputs

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A clear view of active DPPs in Sussex, and of their availability for trainee support.

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Offering a wide range of clinical placements, with an increased NMP trainee activity, with the opportunity to network in diverse healthcare settings, in training clinics, both face-to-face and virtual clinics, which present a range of different challenges, contributing to more in-depth development of knowledge and skills.

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Organisational acknowledgement of the DPP and time built in their job description (ie:1 day/month).

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A plan for future proofing workforce development in the Pharmacy NMP and DPP scene, as well as the overall NMP/IP cross-organisational and professional landscape.

Project Team

Name

Fiona Long

Maria Padfield

Karen Hartley

Natasha Knight

Organisation

Sussex Health and Care (ICS)

Role

Accountable Officer

Project Lead

Project Team