Flagging up changes
Posted in News
‘UNLICENSED’ FLAG
The Rx-info Define newsletter in May 2017 gave advance notice of the intention to remove the Unlicensed Flag from Define as the dm+d filters for Imported, Special Order or Extemp provide more accurate and consistent figures between Trusts.
The Flag has now been removed but Trusts can use the Benchmark reports under Specials to compare figures between Trusts.
Trusts are able to create their own reports in Refine to track spend on items that are not mapped to dm+d and to set up a local flag to assist with Trust-specific unlicensed items.
OVERLABELLED FLAG
The ‘Overlabelled’ Flag is used to identify packs that are supplied to patients either through a specific clinic or A&E, or for a specific reason. It has now been extended to cover items such as HIV post-exposure prophylaxis and MRSA decolonisation packs, where the individual items in the pack are mapped to dm+d, but there will never be a dm+d entry for the pack as a whole.
This use of this Flag in this way will enable Trusts to track the spend on overlabelled items within Refine®.
PATIENT ACCESS SCHEME FLAGS
Many drugs are approved subject to a patient access scheme under NICE Technology Appraisal Guidelines. Usually, this means a simple discount, but in some cases free stock must be claimed, for instance when there is free initial stock or free stock after a period of time.
All drugs mapped to dm+d are included in a Tag for the NICE patient access scheme, but there is evidence that not all Trusts are obtaining free stock where this is applicable.
Two new Flags have been created that are applied only to drugs within the Patient Access Scheme where free stock has to be claimed:
- PAS (Free of charge)
- PAS (charged)
The ‘PAS (free of charge)’ Flag is applied to the drug lines where Trusts indicate that the stock was not paid for, and all other lines for the drug (excluding clinical trial, EAMS or compassionate use) are assigned ‘PAS (charged)’.
See here if your Trust’s free stock is being procured in accordance with the NICE Technology Appraisal. In the example we have looked at Lenalidomide.