24 Feb 2025

PrescQIPP information mastery, prescribing mastery and the Talking Meds podcast

Were your new year’s resolutions to upskill yourself in a particular area or keep up to date with current issues? If yes, then PrescQIPP can help!

Who we are

PrescQIPP is a Community Interest Company funded by the NHS for the NHS. We produce evidence based resources and implementation tools for medicines related interventions, with a “do once and share” ethos to reduce duplication and variation in the NHS.

Who are our subscribers, who can use our resources

We have a UK wide subscriber base that includes all the English Integrated Care Boards (ICBs); Health boards (HBs) in Wales, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and Jersey. We also have some Scottish HBs as subscribers.The PrescQIPP membership benefits are available to ICBs/HBs medicines optimisation and finance teams, and healthcare professionals in GP practices, PCN/clusters, secondary care, community trusts and mental health trusts. They are also available to pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in care homes and community pharmacies.

What we do

PrescQIPP provide a host of resources to help you optimise medicines, improve medicines safety and patient outcomes.

In addition, PrescQIPP create and deliver sessions to help upskill healthcare professionals to tackle medicines optimisation issues more confidently. Visit our learning page to find out more. We highlight here our most recent development opportunities.

Information mastery workshops

Being able to quickly access and interpret the best available evidence and communicate the important points to patients in a way they can understand, is a fundamental skill for all healthcare professionals. We are offering three, free to attend, face-to-face, full day workshops on Information Mastery for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians working in GP practices, PCNs, ICBs or Health Boards, that will answer these questions and more!

How do you cope with information overload and stay up to date with clinical evidence?
Do you feel comfortable about not knowing everything?
Can you find important evidence and recognise it when you see it?
How do you make decisions?
Can you explain the risks and benefits of treatments to others?

The workshops will be delivered by experienced PrescQIPP pharmacists Jonathan Underhill, Medicines Clinical Adviser and Sue Smith, Strategic Clinical Adviser.

Book your place at one of the 3 workshops –

Tuesday 18th March 2025 - London

Tuesday 25th March 2025 - Manchester

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 - London

Prescribing mastery webinars

Are you making every contact count as a pharmacist prescriber in general practice, from truly patient centred outcomes to optimising practice income?
Are you adding value and integrating yourself into the practice team through your prescribing opportunities?
Are you confident and competent to know how (and when) to use guidelines (or not) for the patient you have in front of you?

The prescribing mastery webinars are ideal for any healthcare professionals involved in prescribing and medication management. They are led by a very experienced pharmacist, Zoe Girdis, who has held over 40,000 patient centred, shared decision making consultations.

Zoe has previously covered topics including hypertension, cholesterol management, severe mental illness, and structured medication reviews. These sessions can all be viewed on the PrescQIPP website

Talking Meds podcast

The fortnightly PrescQIPP podcast, Talking Meds, was launched in September 2024. It has already gathered a loyal following of listeners who enjoy the informal chat and discussion about current medical issues and clinical dilemmas. At around 20-30 minutes long, its ideal for the commute to work or daily walk with the dog!

Podcast host, Jonathan Underhill, worked for many years as a clinical pharmacist at NICE and the National Prescribing Centre (NPC) developing innovative ways of teaching therapeutics and decision making, and encouraging implementation of NICE guidance. Jonathan is now working on a variety of projects, including as Medicines Clinical Adviser for PrescQIPP. Talking Meds provides the ideal forum for informal and engaging conversations about medicines related dilemmas with some of the best clinical leaders around!

Information about the individual episodes is available on the PrescQIPP website, as well as links to podcast libraries where these are available. Topics covered so far include safely stopping antidepressants with Dr Mark Horowitz, co-author of the Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines; the new Repeat Prescribing Toolkit from the RPS/RCGP with lead author Clare Howard, and the latest updates on menopause and asthma from NICE, as well as a series of conversations with Dr Lucy Pollock, Consultant Geriatrician, about sensible prescribing in older people. Future topics will include an update on insomnia, desensitising penicillin allergy and a series on medicines optimisation in care homes

Find out more

If you’re new to PrescQIPP, use our virtual induction webpage for information, tips and advice to get the most out of the PrescQIPP website and our community.

Sign up to receive our monthly newsletter direct to your inbox to keep up to date with our latest publications and details about upcoming webinars, workshops and podcasts at https://www.prescqipp.info/mail-chimp/