New Medicine Service (NMS)

The New Medicine Service (NMS) was the fourth Advanced Service to be added to the Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (CPCF); it commenced on 1st October 2011.

The service provides support for people with long-term conditions newly prescribed a medicine to help improve medicines adherence; it is focused on specific patient groups and conditions.

Visit CPE for more info on the following:

• Voluntary quarterly reporting for Q1 2023/24
• Forthcoming changes to the service
• Introduction
• The Directions and service specification
• Before providing the NMS…
• Pharmacist knowledge and skills requirements
• Patients eligible for the service and the NMS medicines list
• Providing the service
• Submitting NMS summary data to the NHSBSA
• Funding for the service and claiming payment
• Frequently Asked Questions
• NMS evaluation and statistics
• Archive – Catch-up NMS

Good Practice examples for NMS success we found in the Humber Area

• Team need to understand why we do services and their role in this.
• Team need to consistently identify eligible patients when labelling.
• Team need to be confident and ‘keep it simple’ when engaging patients.
• Need to have robust system for paperwork e.g. 1-31 file for NMS or electronic e.g. Proscript.
• Need to have regular days/times set aside to ring patients.
• Operational platform needs to be efficient to allow pharmacist time for consultation.
• Pharmacist and Team need to make services a focus.
• Closest pharmacy to surgery e.g. Health centres provides more opportunity for sign ups.
• Low evidence of GP referrals and support. One example, in some areas any issues at intervention are referred directly to the Practice Pharmacist and new Rx for alternative is issued same day.

Referral for New Medicine Service Template

The following templates can be used by prescribers to refer patients for an NMS:

Template Letter for GP NMS Referral for Patients Newly Prescribed an Anticoagulant

Template Letter for GP NMS Referral for Patients Newly Prescribed Hypertension Medicine

NMS Referral Letter – All NMS Groups

NMS Referral Letter – Diabetes

NMS Referral Letter – Respiratory Asthma

NMS Referral Letter – Respiratory COPD

SENTINEL Project & NMS:

SENTINEL is a quality improvement project that aims to implement and promote the appropriate use of Maintenance and Reliever Therapy (MART) across Hull and East Yorkshire in accordance with the local asthma guidelines.

Supporting patients through Asthma therapy/inhaler device change, and promoting understanding of the medication regime is essential to ensure effective asthma control and optimal outcomes for patients.

The Interface Clinical Services team are helping community pharmacies to identify asthma patients who have undergone a review and therapy change, by including the following wording on the right-hand side of prescriptions.

‘This is a new inhaler for this patient, please offer the NMS to the patient on collection’

Further details of the SENTINEL project are available on our SENTINEL page.