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How our warfarin service won a C+D award

Published on: 30 Jun 2017

A pharmacy in Bromley won Clinical Service of the Year at the 2016 C+D Awards for its warfarin service, enabling patients to access anticoagulation testing closer to home.

These days, rather than trek to hospital, patients need go no further than Day Lewis's Bromley branch to receive testing and warfarin dose adjustment. 

The pharmacy now employs a part-time pharmacist to help run clinics two days a week. The team can see up to 50 patients in-store, or make 11 visits to housebound individuals, each week.

In their C+D Award entry, the pharmacy team said the service is "set up with all the equipment to take blood, analyse the results, and make appropriate dose adjustments".

A patient told C+D: "I used to go to the hospital to have my blood checked, and you have to wait for the doses in Lewisham. I was there about two hours."

There has also been an increased number of patients visiting the pharmacy from further afield, and as the pharmacy also dispenses their regular medication, there has been a 5% growth in prescription volume – compared to 1-2% seen at nearby pharmacies.

Pharmacist and manager Atul Patel says: "We were only supposed to run [the service] for a couple of hours a week with a small number of patients, and then it quickly expanded, because people found it more convenient to pop in here and get a 10-minute appointment."

The service has been recognised by local GPs and nurses as "providing excellent support for patients", the team says. The pharmacy has also seen wider benefits as a "direct result" of managing patients on warfarin.

The C+D Award judges praised the service for "utilising the skills of the whole pharmacy team", as well as being an "example of a service to decrease burden on GP practices and hospital outpatients".