Discharge Medicines Service (DMS) Reminder

Written by AlisonFreemantle on Thursday 16th November 2023

Stage 1 MUST BE COMPLETED as a minimum for ALL referrals received

Only exception is for those being rejected.

Currently across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight Pharmacies complete approximately 65% of all referrals.

Overview:

Discharge Medicines Service is an essential service (contractual requirement for all community pharmacies) for patients when they leave hospital. It has 3 stages for the community pharmacy to potentially do.

A patient information leaflet has been developed for use within all local hospitals to help inform the patient of what to expect. There will be an expectation from the patient that the pharmacy will be contacting them. A copy of the leaflet can be found in the supporting documents drop down on the DMS website page:

https://cpsc.org.uk/professionals/nhs-contract/essential/discharge-medicines-service-dms

Referrals:

Local hospitals are making referrals via:

St Marys, Isle of Wight – PharmOutcomes
UHS, Southampton – PharmaOutcomes
HHFT, Winchester & Basingstoke – PharmOutcomes
QA, Portsmouth – nhs.net mail
Salisbury hospital, Salisbury - PharmOutcomes

The stages:

Stage	Description of process	Timescale	Who
1 DMS is received by the pharmacy (minimum service level required contractually)	Check clinical information and actions.	Within 72 hrs (3 working days).	Pharmacist
	Are there any changes compared to pre-admission?		Pharmacist, Pharmacy Technician
	Any issues identified to be raised with the hospital or surgery?
	Check for any outstanding prescriptions awaiting collection -are they still appropriate?
2. The first prescription is received	Check medicines prescribed post-discharge take account of the changes made. Any discrepancies, resolve them with the GP practice.	7-28 days post-discharge	Pharmacist, Pharmacy Technician
3. Check of the patient’s understanding of their new medicines regimen	Check understanding of what medicines they should now be taking/using. Where appropriate, other services can also be provided e.g. New Medicine Service.	First post-discharge prescription	Pharmacist, Pharmacy Technician
Claim for service delivery	Submit claim on MYS along with Summary Data.	Monthly on MYS

What does PharmOutcomes look like & what do I need to complete?

Where it can be found on the services tab.

Completing Stage 1

For most people there won’t be any issues/ actions identified and the answer here will be No.

If you are completing the DMS after stage 1 – select service complete here.

If continuing with stage 2 & 3 at a later date, use the partial save button on the top right of the screen page.

Claiming:

NHS BSA are preparing a digital interface (API) to allow PharmOutcomes to send DMS claims automatically to the Manage Your Service (MYS) portal. This is not yet available for use but is expected early 2024.

Until then you can run a report on PharmOutcomes to get the data required for claiming, a guide on how to do is here: