Discharge Medicines Service (DMS)
Free pharmacist support after a hospital stay. We reconcile your hospital-discharge medication list with your existing repeat — flagging duplicates, omissions, dose changes — and feed any issues back to your GP so the handover doesn't drop the ball.
Why DMS exists
Hospital discharge is the single highest-risk moment for medication errors in the NHS. Roughly 40-50% of patients experience a medication problem in the first 30 days after discharge — wrong dose, missed dose, drug interactions with home medicines, duplicates between the hospital list and the GP list.
DMS is NHS England's structured fix. Your hospital electronically refers you to your nominated community pharmacy when you're discharged with new or changed medicines; the community pharmacist then does the reconciliation that A&E never had time to do.
How DMS works
- Hospital identifies you for DMS at discharge — usually if you've had medicine changes that need follow-up. You don't request DMS; the hospital triggers it.
- Electronic referral sent to your nominated community pharmacy (us, if Hyde Park is your nomination — see our prescription service).
- Stage 1 — clinical check at first dispensing. When you next bring in or order a prescription, we check the discharge list against what's prescribed. Discrepancies are flagged to your GP via secure NHSmail.
- Stage 2 — patient consultation. Within 4 weeks of discharge, we'll phone you or invite you in for a 10-15 minute review. We discuss any new medicines, side effects, technique (e.g. inhalers), and answer questions.
- Stage 3 — final check. If we identified issues for the GP to action, we follow up to confirm they were resolved. Loop closed.
What we look for at reconciliation
- Duplicates — e.g. you were on amlodipine at home, hospital added another calcium-channel blocker without stopping the first.
- Stopped meds — hospital stopped a medicine, but the GP system still issues it on repeat.
- Dose changes — hospital reduced your dose, but the old pack is still at home and you might continue the old strength.
- New medicines — counselling on what each is for, when to take it, common side effects, what to do if you miss a dose.
- Interactions — between new hospital medicines and your existing repeats, vitamins, or over-the-counter products.
- Practical issues — swallowing difficulties, blister-pack requirements, monitoring required (e.g. INR for warfarin).