Background

My name is Dal Sidhu and I am the Director and owner of Medman Consultancy Limited.

I was part of a primary care medicines management team for over 10 years, where I worked initially as a practice-based pharmacist, then senior pharmacist lead for a practice-based commissioning cluster and finally as the data & audit lead for medicines management.

During my time in primary care I highlighted potential prescribing savings of over £3 million and I established Medman Consultancy Limited in 2010, having left the NHS, with the sole purpose of providing tailored solutions for all the medicines management needs of my clients, be that GPs, community pharmacists or the pharmaceutical industry.

GP Practices

Working with practices, some of the services Medman Consultancy Limited can provide include:

• Prescribing advice and education
• Prescribing analysis and reports
• Support with clinical audits such as those required by the GMS contract
• Highlighting areas of potential prescribing cost-savings in line with the national QIPP agenda
• Medication reviews
• Maximising QOF income
• Specific reviews chosen by the practice

The service would be dynamic and adaptable to the needs of the client.

Additionally, as the first pharmacist in the UK to complete the Warwick Insulin for Life course, and being an Independent Prescriber, I am able to provide practices the option of a pharmacist-led diabetes clinic involving insulin initiation, titration and optimisation of oral anti-diabetic treatment. This would bring care closer to home and avoid expensive referrals to clinicians outside of the practice.

This novel approach of pharmacist-led insulin initiations led to a publication in April 2010 and I also ran a successful weekly diabetes clinic between September 2008 and October 2010 with positive patient outcomes, including:

• Average HbA1c reduction = 0.95% (p<0.001)
• Average total cholesterol reduction = 0.31mmol/L (p=0.02)

The prescribing budget will be one of the biggest risks to Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs). Around 14% of CCG budgets will pay for medicines, not just those directly prescribed but also many of the medicines used in hospital so good medicines management support going forward will be essential for managing this risk.

Community Pharmacy

Medman Consultancy Limited can support you with Medicines Use Reviews (MURs) and contractual obligations such as practice-based audits with our community pharmacy audit service. The audit service can enhance your profile with local GPs and serve to lay the foundations for collaborative working with GPs going forward.

Collaborative working with Community Pharmacy is constantly being reviewed and more services should be available soon to raise the profile of Community Pharmacy and show how it can add value to the changing world of the NHS.

Pharmaceutical Industry

Medman Consultancy Limited has already worked on projects with several companies and is looking to expand its portfolio with regards to joint working with the pharmaceutical industry, in order to enable delivery of support for primary care in the current transition period for the NHS and beyond.

One such on-going project has not only served to increase sales dramatically for our client but has also highlighted potential savings to the NHS in excess of £60 million across all CCGs in England.

Training has also been provided for pharmaceutical sales representatives to enable them to communicate effectively with medicines management teams.

The most recent successful addition to our portfolio of services has been prescribing data analysis for pharmaceutical companies that highlights current usage of their products, and more importantly the current usage of their competitor's products, at CCG and individual GP practice level.

This information has proven invaluable in relation to targeted marketing and monitoring of the impact of marketing campaigns, as well the effectiveness of their sales force. The data is available for all GP practices in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland so please contact us for further information on how this data could help to increase your sales effectiveness.

Outcomes

Support with MURs for community pharmacists enabled one pharmacy to increase their MURs from zero to over 100 per month in just a few months.

Medman Consultancy Limited has enabled over 150 GP practices across England to reduce their spend on blood glucose testing strips, lancets and insulin pen needles by at least a third since May 2011. This work is set to continue with more and more practices asking for support in this high spend prescribing area.

Substantial prescribing savings have even been achieved for practices that are prescribing well within their prescribing budgets and not limited to just the higher spending practices.

Recent examples of achieved prescribing savings include:

• £665,000 for a group of 23 practices
• £312,000 for a group of 11 practices
• £306,000 for a group of 9 practices

To discuss how Medman Consultancy Limited can support you please feel free to contact us via e-mail or by calling 0771 309 8001.

We look forward to supporting you to achieve your desired outcomes.

Dal Sidhu BSc(Hons) PgDip(Pharm) IPresc MRPharmS

Director

View my profile and connect with me on LinkedIn