Summary

Sheffield Teaching Hospitals worked in partnership with Sanofi on a project where they employed an administrator to co-ordinate the dermatology biologics service. The project reduced patient waiting times to get their medications, and freed up clinical staff to see additional patients.  

Project outline and outcome

The overall aim of Sheffield Teaching Hospitals working in partnership with Sanofi was to improve patient experience and service capacity within the dermatology biologics service by employing a Biologics Administrator

The objectives of the Joint Working Project were to:

• Improve patient experience of the service by reducing patient wait times and providing a central point of contact for patient queries.
• Reduce the administrative burden on clinical staff thereby freeing up clinical capacity to see additional patients.
• Establish and maintain biologics database to improve service co-ordination and support improvements in the functioning of the multidisciplinary team (MDT) by co-ordinating the MDT.
• Improve the completion of Blueteq forms and the recording of expenditure on high cost drugs to enable the Hospital Trust to improve the recovery of these costs from Clinical Commissioning Groups and NHS England.

Better for Patients

• 15-day reduction in average waiting time from MDT decision to prescribe a biologic to issue of the prescription to pharmacy.
• Worked with Sheffield Children’s Hospital to improve the process for transition of adolescents to the adult service at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals. Prior to this, 4 patients had experienced a break in their biologic treatment in 2021 as the previous transition arrangements did not facilitate the continuation of prescribing.

Better for NHS

• Biologics Administrator has freed up time for clinicians by reducing administrative burden around biologics providing capacity to see additional patients.
• On-going funding of Biologics Administrator post secured within Sheffield Teaching Hospitals.
• Improvements in the completion of BlueTeq forms is supporting the service in securing additional funding for high-cost drugs.