24: The Ten Year NHS Plan - What does this mean for medicines optimisation with Laura Angus

Welcome to the latest episode of Talking Meds and the PrescQIPP podcast, engaging conversations about medicines-related dilemmas. Today, your host Jonathan Underhill, Medicines Clinical Adviser at PrescQIPP, talks to Laura Angus about the  recently published 10 year Health Plan for England, 'Fit for the Future' and the implications for medicines and pharmacy.

Laura likes to stress that, first and foremost, she is a mum of two boys and one crazy cocker spaniel! She work as the Chief Pharmacy Officer/Director of Pharmacy and Medicines Optimisation for Humber and North Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB). In the past 20+ years, Laura has worked in practically all sectors of pharmacy, including working in commissioning, as Head of Medicines Optimisation at NHS Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group, GP Practices as a practice pharmacist; community pharmacy; hospital pharmacy; and in education and training as a teacher practitioner at the University of Bradford and as a regional professional training manager. 

In today's episode Jonathan and Laura discuss the '10 Year plan' as well as the 'Model ICB' that have recently been published. The implications for how we deliver pharmacy and medicines services in the future are huge - but much of the plan is rather high level and how we operationalise this is yet to be determined. Laura and Jonathan discuss how this can be a positive as we can help shape what this looks like.

The role of AI and the Single National Formulary are discussed as well as the important role for the Independent UK Pharmacy Professional Leadership Advisory Board.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Fit for the Future: 10 Year Health Plan for England
• Independent UK Pharmacy Professional Leadership Advisory Board.
• Model ICB

Useful resources on the 10 Year plan:

• Nuffield Trust - An engine for economic growth? Why it won’t be a piece of cake for the NHS
• NHS Confederation guide:
• Podcast from NHS Confederation:
• 5 Minute video take on 10 year plan:
• Blog from Ewan Maule on Single National Formulary

A new episode of Talking Meds will be available every other Friday.
If you have feedback or suggestions for future topics and guests please submit them to talkingmeds@prescqipp.info

PrescQIPP is funded by the NHS for the NHS, and our aim is to improve medicines-related care for patients. We do this by producing high quality evidence-based resources and training, and by facilitating networks between NHS organisations and professionals.

The majority of pharmacists and other healthcare professionals across the UK can access our resources by registering and logging on to our website. If you have any difficulty accessing the website you can email help@prescqipp.info and we’ll aim to sort things out for you.

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