Medicines Formulary
The Trust along with all NHS providers and primary care services within South West London prescribe in line with the South West London (SWL) Joint Medicines Formulary. The SWL formulary aims to recommend clinically effective, safe and economic medicines for use in both primary and secondary care. A joint formulary across both primary and secondary care supports prescribing across the hospital and primary care interface, to ensure consistency in prescribing and continuity in patient care.
For full details about which medicines are approved for use please see the South West London Joint Medicines Formulary. This is used with other resources, such as the British National Formulary, product summaries, and prescribing guidelines, to ensure the safe and appropriate prescribing of medicines.
How medicines are approved
The Medicines Formulary is approved by a Joint Formulary Committee (JFC), which meets monthly. The JFC manages the introduction of new medicines across SWL.
The SWL JFC is made up of representatives from:
- Croydon University Hospital
- Epsom & St Helier Hospital
- Kingston Hospital
- St Georges hospital
- SWL & St Georges Mental health trust
- South West London Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG)
Its members include Consultants, GPs and pharmacists.
Medicines recommended in a technology appraisal for use by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) are automatically included. Proposals to include other medicines require a consultant medical or non-medical prescriber, employed on a permanent basis in a SWL provider organisation within the Integrated Care Service (ICS), or clinicians working as part of a SWL clinical network to make an application for the medicine to be considered.
Use of medicines outside the formulary
On occasion it may be suitable for a medicine to be prescribed which is not on the formulary.
Each Trust has a non-formulary application process which clinicians can use if they consider a non-formulary medicine to be the only suitable option for an individual where formulary medicines have been exhausted or are contra-indicated.
All non-formulary requests will be reviewed and assessed on an individual basis.
Where a non-formulary medication has been approved for use it may be appropriate for this to be prescribed in primary care under an individual care plan once the patient has been stabilised.