The Number and Type of Pharmacist Interventions on the Frailty Assessment Unit at the University Hospital of North Durham

Introduction

The Frailty Assessment Unit (FAU) at the University Hospital of North Durham opened in April 2025. This is a hospital-based facility aiming to treat frail patients that can be discharged that day, or transferred to a suitable place of care more rapidly than by standard hospital pathways. Patients mainly come from Accident and Emergency or are referred by GPs. FAU have received pharmacist input since June 2025. Data was collected over a two week period to find the number and type of interventions made by the pharmacist.

Method

Data collection took place over a 2 week period in July, which equated to 9 working days. As patients were seen on FAU, the number of patients seen and type of interventions made by the pharmacist were recorded on a spreadsheet, then analysed.

Results

The number of patients seen by the pharmacist was 32, out of 47 patients admitted onto FAU on the same days. All 32 patients had a pharmacist medication reconciliation and review. The pharmacist prescribed medications for 6 patients. Out of the 32 patients, 26 had an intervention made by the pharmacist. The types of interventions included; changing incorrect doses, stopping medication which had been prescribed in error and amending timings of time-critical medications.

Conclusion(s)

Overall, having pharmacist input on FAU reduced the number of medication errors. The number of patients seen by the pharmacist on FAU was limited by the pharmacist’s time and quick turnaround time of patients. There is a pharmacy technician who has been recruited to assist on FAU, so the study should be repeated to analyse the impact of having two pharmacy professionals employed.  There may be other interventions made by the pharmacist which were not captured in this data, for example ensuring safe storage of medication and quicker access to medications. Further studies could be carried out to investigate this.