Policy, Procedures and Prescribing Guidelines
Downloadable resources and guidelines are available in this section to support safe and effective prescribing.
Procedures and guidelines uploaded to the site have been written for the use of AWP employees and shared for information only.
Policy: Medicines Policy (P060)
Procedure: Monitoring Psychotropic Medication (Med37)
Guideline: Antipsychotic-induced hyperprolactinaemia (MG12)
Clozapine
Guideline: Management of clozapine in acute hospital settings (MG32)
Procedure: Procedure for the care of patients taking clozapine in primary care settings (Med42)
Summary page: Procedure for the care of patient taking Clozapine in primary care (Med42 - summary page)
Medicines Information and Safety Bulletins
Information on Managing ADHD Medicines Shortages.
The Specialist Pharmacy Services provide a Medicines Advice service, which can be contacted via a single contact number, or email, by professionals working in primary care. Information and contact details can be found on the SPS web page here.
Formulary
At AWP, we work together with two different Integrated Care Systems in South West England:
Each ICS has its ‘formulary’. This is their agreed list of medicines they’ve approved to be prescribed for NHS patients. The main aim of a formulary is to promote safe, effective and economic prescribing both in hospital settings and general practice.
You can check the AWP and ICS formulary status of a specific psychotropic medicine in the AWP Adult Formulary. Please note that the status of a medicine prescribed in the community be a GP can vary depending on whether it is prescribed in the BSW or BNSSG area, so please check this carefully.
Traffic light status
Local formularies use a traffic light system to indicate who can prescribe any given medication:
- Red medicines can only be prescribed in secondary care. This could be in hospitals and specialist care settings.
- Amber medicines can only be prescribed as suggested by a specialist, as with many medications used in psychiatry.
- Green medicines can be prescribed by any competent prescriber.
- Blue medicines can be prescribed as an alternative (often in specific conditions) in both primary and secondary care.
Shared care agreements
A ‘shared care agreement’ (SCA) sets out suggested ways that a specialist and a primary care provider, such as a GP, can share responsibility for prescribing medication. The way each medicine should be prescribed is written in a document called a ‘shared care protocol’ (SCP). Some of these medicines can only be handed over to a GP if there’s a formal shared care agreement in place.
When professionals agree to sharing of care, it’s important that:
- there’s clear communication between the specialist, GP and service user/patient (and/or their carer).
- the prescriber starting off a service user’s/patient’s treatment explains the shared care agreement.
- professionals ask the service user/patient for their opinion about treatment and everyone agrees to it.
- professionals regularly follow up with service users/patients to discuss how their medicine therapy is working.
You are welcome to look at the shared care agreements in place in your ICS:
Adding a new medicine to the formulary
AWP has a Medicines Optimisation Group. This manages the reviews and entry of new medicines on both the AWP formulary and the ICS formularies as needed.
Non-formulary medicines
The Medicines Optimisation Group uses AWP’s ‘procedure for the use of non-formulary medication’ to review any medicines not listed in the AWP formulary. Our Chief Pharmacist, Medical Director, or a deputy authorised by them, needs to approve the use of non-formulary medication in AWP.
