RDS access to medicines advice

This tool automatically converts guidelines and pathways in a predefined Word format into a consistent structure and format as a Right Decision Service toolkit.  It is ready to roll-out for SIGN guidelines and the RDS team will start working on retrospective and prospective conversion of SIGN guidelines after the Umbraco 17 go-live at the end of July. The team is also now working with the SIGN team and the Scottish Medicines Consortium to deliver a consistent approach to integrating SMC advice into SIGN guidelines.

If you are interested in converting your  national or local guidelines and pathways automatically into consistent RDS toolkit structures, please  get in touch with Maria at maria.cordero2@nhs.scot

User acceptance testing has now been completed for new medicines search and browse functionality within the Right Decision Service. This will enable:

• consistent access to medicines information by generic medicine name, BNF category and sub-categories, therapeutic area and condition.
• retrieval of medicines information from within RDS toolkits alongside external sources such as the BNF, BNFC, regional and local formularies and the Palliative Care Formulary.

Delivery of personalised notifications for new and updated medicines information on the RDS is in the final The notification functionality should be released for user acceptance testing at the end of July 2026.

The project team has also begun to outline the process of indexing RDS content relating to medicines. This indexing will underpin the search, browse and notification functionalities and will make finding medicines information on the RDS more efficient and consistent.

Six pilot sites have been identified to carry out initial piloting and evaluation of this platform:

• Systemic anti-cancer therapy (SACT) – NHS Lothian
• Cancer prehabilitation screening – NHS Lothian, NHS Tayside
• Scottish Cancer Management Pathway for HPV cancer of pancreas and biliary tract – NHS Tayside
• Psychology Adding Value – Epilepsy Screening for children and young people with mental health issues (PAVES)
• Medicines review – NHS Borders, NHS Tayside, NHS Lanarkshire
• Excellence in Care Patient-Reported Experience Measure (piloting with Hospital at Home)

The RDS team is working with Tactuum to deliver a PROMS-Lite version of the platform with no storage or processing of person-identifiable data, to enable implementation of a first wave of pilots while we await approval of the data protection and information governance arrangements and confirmation of PSDS hosting for the full platform.

Please get in touch with maria.cordero2@nhs.scot if you have any questions or thoughts on this work