Providing advice and support on the safe and appropriate use of medicines.
Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust’s pharmacy service advises on and supports the safe and appropriate use of medicines within the trust.
We do this by providing:
- Accurate, independent information and education about medicines to service users and carers
- Information and education for trust staff and other professionals
- Clinical activities to help ensure the optimum use of medicines
- Medicines optimisation to ensure the most cost-effective use is made of resources
Dispensaries
We have three locality dispensaries (based in York, Middlesbrough and Darlington), which supply and dispense medication for inpatients as well as service users who are being cared for by our community teams. Opening hours are Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. One of the dispensaries (on rotation) is also open on a weekend to provide urgently required medication for in-patient services.
Choice and Medication website
The trust’s Choice and Medication website (www.choiceandmedication.org/tees-esk-and-wear-valleys) offers information about medications used for mental health illnesses to help people make informed decisions about the medicines they need. Patients can use this site on their own or together with family, a carer, a doctor, nurse or pharmacist.
On the Choice and Medication website you’ll useful information on:
- Commonly asked questions about mental health medicines
- Mental health conditions and the medicines used to treat them
- Comparing the main medications that are usually prescribed for a mental health condition
- Side effects of medicines
You can also view information leaflets for specific medications.
The homepage has two drop down boxes where you can find information by condition or by medication. Using this search option will show the information on screen (rather than a printable version.)
There is also a general search box.
You can print leaflets by clicking on the orange box that says ‘view leaflets’.
Select the meditation you want, and the ‘select leaflet type’ drop down box will show you the range of leaflets available. If a medicine is more common, there will be more leaflet types and translations available.
Note: Not all the medication listed on the Choice and Medication website will be able to be prescribed in TEWV (see below)
Which medicines do we prescribe?
The National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) approves which medicines can be prescribed to patients.
They also carry out ‘technology appraisals’ which give recommendations on the use of new and existing medicines and treatments within the NHS. The NHS is legally obliged to fund and resource medicines and treatments recommended by NICE’s technology appraisals.
The list of approved medication we can prescribe for mental health conditions is called a ‘formulary’.
Our formulary (which is used Trustwide) is listed on the County Durham and Tees Valley formulary website (http://formulary.cdd.nhs.uk). On the formulary website, use the links at the left and click on central nervous system / chapter 4 to see the approved mental health medicines. The formulary also indicates which treatments we use that have been approved by NICE.
Feedback
Please let your care team know if you want to comment on whether:
- this information is useful
- any information is missing
- you do not understand the information
Do you have concerns or complaints?
If you have concerns or complaints about a service you can:
- tell a member of staff
- call our Complaints service – freephone 0800 052 0219
- email tewv.complaints@nhs.net
Information in other languages and formats
All of our information leaflets are available in many formats; please contact a member of staff if you would like this leaflet in:
- another language
- large print
- audio
- braille
Find this information
Staff: Trustwide shared drive > Patient and Carer Information > Pharmacy trustwide information
Patients and carers: go to our website www.tewv.uk and search pharmacy service
L1084, V3, 29/02/2024 (Archive: 27/02/27)
