Primary care trusts. Heavenly body.

A primary care trust has found that managers value the provision of locum cover for staff to attend multidisciplinary workshops. Evaluation shows that GPs and other staff appreciate protected learning time. If funding can be secured, the workshops will be supplemented with protected learning time in practices.

A comparison of community pharmacists' and general practitioners' opinions on rational prescribing, formularies and other prescribing related issues.

A postal survey of Community Pharmacists (CPs) and General Medical Practitioners (GPs) in the Enfield and Haringey (E&H) and North Yorkshire (N Yorks) Family Health Services Authority (FHSA) areas was carried out to investigate: a. their opinions regarding clinically oriented 'extended' roles for CPs, and the possibility of interprofessional collaboration on them, and b. their views on a range of prescribing related issues.

Improving prescribing of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in hospital: an educational approach.

An assessment has been undertaken of the effect of an educationally-based voluntary prescribing policy on the overall prescribing of NSAIDs in two acute hospital units. The policy engendered a fall in district expenditure on these drugs of 12% over 1 year. The long term impact of the policy was studied after 3 years within one area of hospital prescribing, the Accident and Emergency (A & E) department.