The NHS Discharge Medicines Service is an essential service for community pharmacy contractors. As an essential service, all community pharmacy contractors must be able to provide the service.
Discharge from hospital is associated with an increased risk of avoidable medicines-related harm.1 The NHS Discharge Medicines Service aims to:
Although the service is provided by community pharmacy, pharmacy professionals from all areas of practice have important roles to play in supporting the patient's journey through the service.
The resources on this page will help community pharmacy contractors, hospital and primary care pharmacy teams to deliver the service and improve outcomes for patients.
This video summarises the service, the CPPE learning and other supporting resources.
You will find guidance and further information on the NHS Discharge Medicines Service regulations in Chapter 8 of the Guidance on the National Health Service (Charges and Pharmaceutical and Local Pharmaceutical Services) (Amendment) Regulations 2020. Click on the button below to access this document.
NHS Pharmacy Regulations Guidance 2020This toolkit supports cross-sector implementation of the NHS Discharge Medicines Service as an essential service in all NHS community pharmacies in England. It sets out the shared responsibility and roles of pharmacy teams in community pharmacy, NHS trusts and primary care networks (PCNs) in ensuring patient safety, better patient outcomes and medicines reconciliation on discharge. Click on the button below to access this document.
NHS Discharge Medicines Service – Essential Service Toolkit for pharmacy staff in community, primary and secondary careThe CPPE NHS Discharge Medicines Service: improving outcomes for patients transferring care e-learning programme aims to support community pharmacy professionals to deliver the NHS Discharge Medicines Service. It will enable pharmacy professionals in other settings to understand how their role links to the patient’s journey through this service. Completing the associated e-assessment will help you check your learning from the programme.
NHS Discharge Medicines Service: improving outcomes for patients transferring care e-learning NHS Discharge Medicines Service: improving outcomes for patients transferring care e-assessmentIf you are a community pharmacy professional providing the NHS Discharge Medicines Service, you will need to ensure you have the necessary knowledge and skills by working through the Declaration of Competence (DoC) framework for the service. The DoC framework for the NHS Discharge Medicines Service is available on the Declaration of Competence section of the CPPE website. If you have not used a DoC framework before, or would like a reminder of how to work through the DoC system, access A guide to using the Declaration of Competence (DoC) system
Non-GPhC registered staff supporting provision of the service should be briefed on the service and provided with the training necessary for them to undertake a supporting role. You can find a DMS briefing for pharmacy teams on the PSNC Discharge Medicines Service web page.
