Background: There is limited published data describing the impact of clinical pharmacy services in the oncology and haematology setting, particularly the outpatient setting. As a result of a 2010 study by Ruder et al describing the value of a pharmacist in their outpatient setting, RDH conducted a similar audit across both the inpatient and outpatient haematology oncology setting.¹  RDH has a small inpatient load of haematology and oncology patients and a day admission unit for administration of outpatient chemotherapy unit seeing an average of 15-20 patients a day.

Methods: A four week period of data was collected by two pharmacists working in haematology and oncology. Four categories of information were collected: questions from prescribers (143), questions from nursing staff (203), provision of patient information and counselling (63) and interventions made (325). Data collected was further broken down into the types of questions, types of medicines information given and the types of interventions made by pharmacists.

Results: Of particular interest was that 325 interventions were made in the four weeks. 98 (30%) were administration interventions including missing signatures, legal requirements, missing doses. 81 (25%) were on the chemotherapy administration charts including dose adjustments due to Body Surface Area (BSA), changes in renal function; wrong BSA or dose calculations and supportive care medication adjustments. 97 (30%) were related to non-chemotherapy medication interventions in the inpatient setting and 49 (15%) were regarding medication reconciliation on admission and discharge.

Conclusion: The study confirmed the value of having a pharmacist working with the haematology and oncology teams at RDH, across the inpatient and outpatient setting. It showed the areas they were utilised most in and raised questions of potentially increasing the presence of the pharmacist in the outpatient setting to further improve practice and patient care.