I seem to be visiting more CLAHRCs (Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care) next week than in all my time as a boy looking for new school shoes.  One of the CLAHRCs unfortunate enough to be visited by me is Northwest London.

They’ve just launched a brilliant new tool to help patients keep track of medicine changes and improve communication with health professionals and others. ‘My Medication Passport’ is available in hard copy and can also be downloaded as an app on your smartphone.  The initiative is an idea that came out of the CLAHRC’s public involvement group and is already being used by 5000 patients across Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.

The ‘My Medication Passport’ web pages are bursting with good information to accompany the launch including patient testimonials and a video.  Really, really good and just the sort of thing that has been emanating from CLAHRCs. Here’s hoping this blog can help a little in putting it in the hands of more patients for whom medication changes are a real care and safety issue.

Since we are talking about innovation the Guardian did one of its online discussion today, this time on the role of the Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs). Panelists included Jonathan Sheffield from the National Institute for Health Research Clinical Research Networks (NIHR CRNs).  The discussion can be found here although those nice people at the Guardian normally do a summary too at some point.