NHS Digital has established a new Hospital Prescribing and Administration resource to support COVID-19 research
A new data collection that provides information about what medicines are prescribed and administered to patients in hospitals is now available to support COVID-19 research.
Working with NHSX to support the COVID-19 response work, NHS Digital has established this new Hospital Prescribing and Administration resource.
The data is sourced from secondary care NHS trusts but is currently limited to those using electronic prescribing and administration systems (EPMA) supplied by WellSky.
Linking data sets
The collection will be expanded to include medicines data from the second cohort of Trusts using the Cerner system by autumn 2021.
Linking this data with other data sets will help to:
- Support identification of patient groups who might be at higher risk of harm if they contract COVID-19
- Show where particular medicines may provide greater protection or poorer outcomes
- Provide insight into how medicines have been used to treat COVID-19 patients in hospitals
- Understand patterns of prescribing before, during and after COVID-19
- Model the impact that treatment of serious infections including antibiotics, antivirals and antifungals has on patient outcomes and antimicrobial resistance over the course of the pandemic
Steven Marks Programme Manager at NHS Digital said: “Until recently there had been no central information available at patient level in secondary care to aid understanding and research into hospital prescribing practices, so this high-quality data will provide critical insight into how infection is being managed across NHS organisations in response to COVID-19.”
Ann Slee Associate CCIO (Medicines) at NHSX said ”This is a huge step forward and forms the basis for the longer-term national collection of EPMA data that will support numerous medication safety and other overprescribing initiatives.
“It will help us to further develop the right standards to underpin hospital prescribing and deepen our understanding of and approach to managing challenges such as antimicrobial resistance.”
