The collaborative

Acute and mental health NHS Trusts are invited to submit an expression of interest, to be among a cohort of sites actively participating in the first Safer Use of Time Critical Medicines Quality Improvement Collaborative. The information on this page aims to support those considering being involved, including criteria for inclusion and the offer of support.

Background

There are known risks associated with time critical medicines, and harms continue to be reported due to people not getting these medicines on time.

The Safer Use of Time Critical Medicines Programme has been running since 2024, led by the NHS Specialist Pharmacy Service (SPS). The programme aims to identify interventions that effectively reduce harm from time critical medicines, share this learning and support replication of practice across the NHS. The programme is part of NHS England’s Medicines Safety Improvement Programme (MedSIP).

An appreciative inquiry was undertaken between October 2024 and March 2025. This enabled us to gain a detailed understanding of improvement work that has already been carried out and what has been learnt from this, with a focus on what worked well.

Benefits of taking part

As part of the collaborative, you will receive supported delivery of a local quality improvement project designed to reduce the number of delayed and omitted doses of time critical medicines experienced by patients. This can also lead to:

• improved quality of life for people on time critical medicines
• improved patient experience
• reduced patient harm, including death
• reduced length of stay for people on time critical medicines
• reduced number of medication errors
• reduced staff time spent on remedial actions after an omitted or delayed dose

The collaborative aims to equip trusts with the skills and knowledge to deliver high quality projects, improving the safe use of time critical medicines in the local organisation. We will share knowledge that we have gained from the programme so far. This will include interventions shown to have an impact on reducing omitted and delayed doses of time critical medicines.

By participating in this collaborative, it will take you on an improvement journey in medicines safety and leave a legacy of skills in your project team and organisation. These skills can be used not only to continue this improvement project into future years but also to develop other local improvement projects.

Support

The Safer Use of Time Critical Medicines Programme Team will provide professional leadership, advice, guidance and support to the project teams as part of the collaborative. We aim to coach project teams in their improvement work, supporting the adaption and adoption of exemplar innovations and interventions collected as part of our appreciative inquiry.

There will be opportunities to network with other sites involved in the collaborative, which will provide an additional source of support. This will provide opportunities for teams to work through implementation barriers and solutions in a supported environment.

Continuation of the collaborative supported by the Safer Use of Time Critical Medicines Programme Team after March 2026 is subject to funding and organisational change in the NHS.

Submitting an expression of interest

Before registering your Trust’s interest, please first review the supporting information in this article. Once you have done this, registration can be completed using the link at the bottom of this page.

Timeline

• Wednesday 28th May 2025 – applications open to register an expression of interest
• 9am on Monday 30th June 2025 – deadline to submit an expression of interest
• Week commencing 30th June 2025 – successful applicants will be notified

There is a short turnaround time between the successful applicants being notified and the first online events. Please ensure these events are in your team’s diaries.

Online event schedule

• Introduction to the collaborative – Tuesday 8th July 2025 2-3pm
• Workshop 1: Project Initiation – Tuesday 15th July 2025 10am-1pm
• Workshop 2: Building Momentum – Wednesday 30th July 2025 10am-1pm
• Workshop 3: Delivering Change – Wednesday 8th October 2025 2-5pm
• Workshop 4: Sustaining Improvement – Tuesday 20th January 2026 1-4pm
• Celebration Event – Wednesday 18th March 2026 2-5pm

Criteria for inclusion

Trusts who are confident they will meet the inclusion criteria by the collaborative start date (8th July 2025) are invited to submit an expression of interest. The following criteria must be met:

1. Your organisation is an acute or mental health NHS Trust in England.
2. An electronic prescribing and medicines administration system will be used in the planned intervention area(s).
3. You are able to form a project team dedicated to leading this improvement work in your Trust.
4. The project team must include a nominated project lead, who has the capability and resource to lead the project throughout the duration of the collaborative (until at least the end of March 2026).
5. You are able to commit to actively working with patients, families, carers and staff during the improvement project. This could include Patient Safety Partners, patient and public voice partners, those with lived experience and staff focus groups. During the collaborative, you will put a plan in place to ensure this expertise is embedded throughout the project.
6. The improvement project will have executive-level sponsorship.
7. You will have support from the Trust’s Medical Director, Director of Nursing and Director of Pharmacy (or equivalent roles).
8. The project team will include a member of the Trust’s Business Intelligence and/or Information Technology team, to be the specialist in data collection and analysis.
9. The project team will include a member of the Trust’s Quality Improvement Team (or equivalent) to support the project. This will include use of locally agreed quality improvement methodology, and alignment to broader quality and safety improvement work e.g. Patient Safety Incident Response Framework.
10. You agree to undertake an equality impact assessment for the proposed work on time critical medicines and ensure this is used to inform the whole improvement project.
11. You will work with the Safer Use of Time Critical Medicines Programme Team throughout the collaborative, to ensure appropriate measurement and data collection methods are in place and routinely provided.
12. You have a clear governance approach outlined for the management and operationalisation of this improvement project. This will include provision of reports and updates to all relevant stakeholders.
13. You will ensure a minimum of 3 members of the project team can attend each of the online events via Microsoft Teams.

Form for submitting an expression of interest

Please use the link below to submit your expression of interest, via Microsoft Forms, after reading the above information.

If you have any queries about the collaborative, there is a section to submit these on the expression of interest form. A member of the programme team will contact you before the closing date to discuss.

By submitting an expression of interest, you are agreeing that the data you provide throughout the collaborative may be used by NHS Specialist Pharmacy Service and NHS England for education and training purposes, including publications.

Expression of interest form