Prescribing and Medicines Management

Somerset medicines management website aims to provide prescribers with the most up to date policies, documents and guides to better prescribing.

The Medicines Management Team ensure that local formularies, medicines optimisation work, and commissioning decisions around prescribing reflect the needs of the Somerset population and allow the uptake of safe, cost effective, evidence based, innovative medicines and treatments. 

With this in mind, consider also that:

• up to 50% of patients do not take their medicines as intended
• between five and eight per-cent of all unplanned hospital admissions are due to medication issues
• in primary care it is estimated at least £300m is spent each year on medicines that go to waste
• according to medication safety data, the NHS could do much better at reporting and preventing avoidable harm from medicines
• resistance to antibiotics presents a very real and significant threat to modern healthcare.

The Somerset Prescribing Formulary is a living document. It is continuously updated as prescribing decisions are made locally or as new national guidance is considered by the Somerset Prescribing Forum or local Drug & Therapeutics Committees: