A recently established Pathfinder has enabled Foyle Hospice staff to prescribe medicine to palliative patients living in their own homes.
It enables specialist palliative care doctors and nurses to directly prescribe, which is then supplied via local community pharmacies.
The Pathfinder ran from September 2024 to March 2025 and enabled more timely access to the supply of palliative medication.
Before the Pathfinder project, specialist palliative care doctors and nurses operating within Foyle Hospice needed to contact the patient’s GP to ask them to prescribe medicines on their behalf.
Hospice prescribers participating in the Pathfinder can now directly write prescriptions, for medicines required urgently or where increased doses of existing medication are needed that can be supplied from a local community pharmacy.
As a result, there has been a reduction in patient waiting times to access medicines, more GP capacity, and patients reaching the end of their life could receive more care at home.
To assist with the wider implementation of the model, the Medicines Optimisation Innovation Centre has independently evaluated the Pathfinder.
A recommendation will be made to incrementally adopt HS21 prescribing into standard practice in all Hospice settings throughout Northern Ireland.
