Discharge Medicines Service (DMS)
The NHS Discharge Medicines Service (DMS) targets patients who have been discharged from hospital on new, changed, or complex drug regimens. It involves the hospital sending details of these changes to the patient’s regular community pharmacy. This then supports the community pharmacist when they check follow-up prescriptions from the GP surgery to ensure they correspond with what was prescribed by the hospital.
The pharmacist will also discuss any such changes with the patient to ensure they fully understand the alterations and how to take their medicines correctly.
The evidence shows that patients who are supported by this service are much less likely to be readmitted (5.8% vs 16% at 30 days) and spend fewer days in hospital (7.2 days on average compared to 13.1 for patients who did not have access to the service) where they are readmitted.