Supporting Prescribing in Irish Primary Care: General Practice Pharmacist Study

The pharmacist will participate in the management of repeat prescribing and undertake medication reviews (which will address high risk prescribing and potentially inappropriate prescribing, deprescribing and cost-effective and generic prescribing) with adult patients. Pharmacists will also provide prescribing advice regarding the use of preferred drugs, undertake clinical audits, join practice team meetings and facilitate practice-based education. Throughout the six-month intervention period, anonymised practice-level medication (e.g. medication changes) and cost data will be collected.

For this, a sub-set of patients (n=200) aged ≥65 years on ≥10 repeat medicines will be recruited and invited to a medication review with the pharmacist. PROMs and healthcare utilisation data will be collected using patient questionnaires and a six-week follow-up review with these patients will also be conducted.