Join the Pharmacotherapy Quick Start Programme
The programme is currently open for expressions of interest for future cohorts.
The programme takes primary care teams including GP clusters, GP practices and pharmacotherapy teams step-by-step through improving an aspect of pharmacotherapy, from how to understand their system to testing a change idea and monitoring improvement.
Teams can choose to work on any aspect of pharmacotherapy including:
- Acute prescribing
- Polypharmacy reviews
- High-risk medicines
- Hub working
- DMARDs monitoring
- Streamlining prescription requests
- Greener prescribing
- Serial prescriptions
Benefits of joining the programme
Our improvement advisors will provide hands-on support to help you get started with making improvements to an aspect of pharmacotherapy that can:
- enable staff involved in prescribing to work together effectively
- safely streamline prescribing processes, and
- enable pharmacotherapy and practice staff to fully utilise their skill sets.
During the programme, teams will be supported to:
- Explore your current system including prescribing data.
- Select a specific area to investigate and improve using tried and tested improvement tools.
- Test changes and monitor improvement.
- Share learning within clusters and further afield.
From October 2022 to June 2023, we have supported 18 primary care teams to use quality improvement methods to improve an aspect of pharmacotherapy in our Primary Care Access Programme. Read about what teams achieved in the programme:
- Brief Insights: Reducing acute prescription demand with permissible repeats
- Brief Insights: Reducing phone calls with an online prescription request form
Joining criteria
Primary care teams interested in joining are asked to meet three criteria to ensure they have the conditions to successfully improve an aspect of pharmacotherapy. They are:
Criteria one: Be a:
- GP cluster (if all practices can participate)
- GP practice team,
- pharmacotherapy team, or
- a combined pharmacotherapy/practice team
Criteria two: Ability to identify a project team including representatives of all services involved. The team should include:
- A decision maker – someone with authority to sign off changes to processes and policies.
- An improvement team lead – someone who will drive the project forward and be the key point of contact with your coach.
- An administrator – someone who can support data collection and work with your coach to arrange session dates and times.
Criteria three: Availability to participate as required throughout the programme (future dates to be confirmed).
If you are interested in joining the programme but are concerned you may not be able to meet all the criteria, please get in touch by emailing his.pcpteam@nhs.scot to speak to a member of the team.
Application process
If you are interested in joining future cohorts for the Pharmacotherapy Quick Start programme, please complete the expression of interest form.
More information
You can find more information on our pharmacotherapy work by visiting:
If you have any questions relating to the programme or would like to speak to a member of the team, please get in touch by emailing his.pcpteam@nhs.scot.