Homepage

Welcome to the Surrey Heartlands Joint Formulary & Prescribing Advisory Database.

This website is host to:

• The Joint Medicines Formulary for prescribers across Primary and Secondary Care within the Surrey Heartlands Integrated Care System
  
  
• The Surrey Prescribing Advisory Database (PAD) which is a repository for local and national guidelines, prescribing information, safety advice, patient resources, evidence reviews, and other papers submitted to the Surrey Heartlands Area Prescribing Committee (APC) and / or Drugs & Therapeutics Committees (DTCs)

All formulary decisions have been agreed through the Surrey Heartlands Area Prescribing Committee (APC) or the Drugs & Therapeutics Committee of one or more Surrey Heartlands Hospital Trusts.

The Joint Formulary is applicable to all prescribers who have a responsibility for treating the patients of Surrey Heartlands and include (but not limited to):

• General Practices and GP Federations within Surrey Heartlands ICB
• Ashford & St Peters Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (ASPH)
• Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust (RSFT)
• Surrey & Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust (SASH)
• Surrey & Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (SABP)
• Central Surrey Health (CSH Surrey)
• First Community Health & Care (FCHC)
• HCRG Care Group

The site is intended for use by healthcare professionals in Surrey Heartlands but is freely accessible to other organisations and members of the public. Any person who is not employed by the member organisations who wishes to use or copy the materials for their own use should first seek permission and acknowledge the original source.

The content of this site is maintained by members of the Surrey Heartlands Medicines Optimisation Team and Secondary Care Pharmacy Teams.

Your comments or feedback are welcome by visiting the contact page. An email address is provided for each of the contributing organisations – please select the address for your organisation.

The Home page

The home page contains a number of features:

• Search: Direct access to the “Search” function (enter a drug name, condition or keyword) or use the A-Z menu
• Quick Links: for Traffic Light Status and icon definitons, Contact Us
• News: The News feed will be used to raise awareness of new / updated guidelines, drug shortages, safety advice and other significant events
• Latest Additions: A list of the latest entries can be found in the Latest Additions menu

About PAD

The Surrey Prescribing Advisory Database (PAD) is a repository for locally and nationally produced resources to support safe and appropriate prescribing. On PAD you will find:

• Guidelines for a variety of therapeutic areas
• A brief description of APC/DTC decisions
• Safety advice / resources
• Shared care agreements
• Area Prescribing Committee papers including evidence reviews, NICE briefings, minutes
• Patient resources – information leaflets, instruction guides
• Links to national resources and guidelines
• Non-clinical guides and resources are available on PAD but will not have a formulary entry. These non-clinical resources can be found by searching for key words / terms (e.g. Polypharmacy, Medication Review, Self-care etc)

About Formulary

The formulary uses a colour classification system, often referred to as a traffic light status, to define where clinical and prescribing responsibilities lie across the interface between primary, secondary and tertiary / highly specialist care: 

 The formulary page displays the drug name, form, indication and colour classification status.

You will also see the following:

 which indicates that this is on the formulary for your Trust or

which indicates that this is NOT on the formulary for your Trust

Additional restrictions, cautions or preferences are listed to the right of the colour classification status.

Icons are used to identify additional information (This may need to be updated as icons may change):

Each drug is also accompanied by a link to the SPC and a link to NICE (where applicable).

Navigation

• Type a drug name, condition or keyword into the Search box and hit enter (correct spellings required)
• Select an option from your search results
• The formulary status will be displayed for your search along with other drugs used for the same indication.
• Your search result is listed first, followed by Green / preferred drugs, Blue, Amber, Red, non-formulary
• Hover over a traffic light colour or icon to read the definition
• Click on a link to see the SPC or NICE (where applicable)
• Click on a drug name to be directed to the PAD profile (see about PAD for more information)

Note: Drugs can also be viewed in an alphabetical list by selecting a letter of the alphabet from the top of the formulary page