How new pharmacy services saved £20 million per year in Northern Ireland

Several key elements supported the spectacular developments in pharmacy services in Northern Ireland and one of the results was a £200 million saving over an eight-year period, according to Professor Cathy Harrison, Chief Pharmaceutical Officer at the Department of Health in Northern Ireland,

The Medicines Optimisation Quality Framework

The Medicines Optimisation Quality Framework shifted the focus from individual settings, e.g. community pharmacy or hospital pharmacy, to a whole-system approach to medicines’ optimisation. Importantly, this brought about a shift in pharmacists’ own perceptions of their work. “I really do think it was a paradigm shift in how we perceived our value and the role of pharmacists within the Health and Social Care system. ….. the difference that made was quite significant …. and it became much more relevant to many, many more stakeholders than perhaps our previous focus which would have been very much on improvements and developments within our own sector”, explains Professor Harrison.

Championing belief and pride in pharmacy

Championing belief and pride in pharmacy is an important function for healthcare leaders, says Professor Harrison. Members of the pharmacy team need to hear that their role is valued that their expertise is acknowledged, she says. In addition, it advances the profession to others and could inspire young people to enter the profession.  It is also a way of supporting the workforce and recognising the challenges they face and it “sends a strong message to other professions and the public around a sense of pride in ourselves and in our professionalism”, she adds.

The Medicines’ Optimisation and Innovation Centre (MOIC)

The Medicines Optimisation and Innovation Centre (MOIC) was established nearly 10 years ago to support the implementation of medicines’ optimisation.  The Centre is funded by the Department of Health and is commissioned to conduct research, evaluations and reviews to inform policy and commissioning decisions and to ensure robust evaluation frameworks. “Since it has been established, I have to say it has been absolutely instrumental in supporting both policy development and policy implementation for us in medicine’s optimisation and [in] some of the major advances that we’ve seen in pharmacy practice”, says Professor Harrison.

The MOIC has been successful in securing funding from external sources and building collaborations with academia, industry and the wider health and life science ecosystem. It has also raised the profile of Northern Ireland internationally through its successful partnerships and research.

£200 million savings

“One of our reform programmes under medicines’ optimisation relates to the cost-effective use of medicines and we have a programme that we call the Medicines’ Optimisation Regional Efficiency programme, or MORE for short. And that programme, over the last eight years, has actually delivered in the region of £200 million of savings in medicines’ costs for our very our small health system in Northern Ireland”, explains Professor Harrison.  The MORE programme focuses on cost-effective prescribing policies and robust procurement practices to deliver efficiencies. “I have to say that we built the MORE programme on very firm foundations of a pharmacy clinical effectiveness programme”, she adds.

Professor Harriuson emphasises that prior to the MORE programme generic prescribing and standardisation of procurement practices had been introduced. “The MORE programme really allowed us to take a step change and create more system-wide buy-in for those policies and I think that that’s why it has continued to deliver consistently”, she says.

This interview was based on the keynote lecture the Professor Harrison gave at the European Society of Clinical Pharmacy (ESCP) Symposium in 2024 in Krakow, Poland.

About Cathy Harrison

Professor Cathy Harrison is the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for Northern Ireland, working at the Department of Health.

She studied pharmacy at Liverpool John Moore’s University and later completed a Master’s degree at Queen’s University, Belfast.  After graduation in 1989 she worked in community pharmacy in England and Northern Ireland before joining the Department of Health in 2005 as Principal Pharmaceutical Officer. She was later promoted to Deputy Chief Pharmaceutical Officer and appointed Chief Pharmaceutical Officer in January 2020.

Professor Harrison leads a wide-ranging work programme involving pharmacy and medicines policy and legislation. She is committed to realising pharmacy’s greater contribution to better health outcomes for patients and more effective utilisation of health resources.

She is honorary Professor of Practice at Queen’s University Belfast.

Read and watch the full series on our website or on YouTube.