Please note – this is no longer an active Health Innovation Manchester project

TCAM was a national AHSN Network adoption and spread programme during 2018-2020. All AHSNs, including Health Innovation Manchester, delivered this programme in their region between April 2018- March 2020. Health Innovation Manchester extended support for the project during 2020 as part of the COVID-19 response.

Transfers of Care Around Medicine (TCAM) provides extra support to patients to ensure they correctly take their prescribed medicines. This may be because their medicines have changed or they need a bit of help taking their medicines safely and effectively.

The transfer of care process is associated with an increased risk of adverse effects. 30-70% of patients experience unintentional changes to their treatment or an error is made because of a miscommunication.

This is what the Transfers of Care Around Medicine (TCAM) project aimed to address.

When patients discharged from hospital are identified as needing extra support, they are referred through a safe and secure digital platform for advice from their local community pharmacist.

Original work in the North East showed that patients who see their community pharmacist after they’ve been in hospital are less likely to be readmitted and, if they are, will experience a shorter stay.

Through our national implementation of TCAM in 2018-2020, each AHSN supported their local trusts to establish a TCAM pathway. This will enable all suitable patients to be referred to their community pharmacy or GP pharmacist where appropriate.

In Greater Manchester, Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust was the first hospital and locality to be implementing a TCAM software platform (based on the PharmOutcomes system).

During COVID-19 it was critical to keep vulnerable patients out of hospital to protect them, but also to maintain critical care capacity.

Health Innovation Manchester adapted and accelerated the Transfer of Care Around Medicines (TCAM) project, which supports patients leaving hospital to stay safe by providing them with access to support about taking their prescribed medication through their GP or community pharmacy.

A secure web-based TCAM solution is being introduced in Greater Manchester allowing hospitals to send discharge notifications direct to the patient’s nominated pharmacy and GP.

The web-based system does not require technical integration with the IT systems at the hospital, however still allows a quick and seamless transfer of care by connecting to the PharmOutcomes platform used in over 680 community pharmacies in GM.

This allowed the solution to be rapidly integrated into patient care and start to provide benefits to patients and hospitals during the COVID-19 outbreak and beyond.