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2025 Bennett Institute Medicines Symposium | Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science

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Reposted by Brian

Brian @brianmackenna.bsky.social · 13d

Can the NHS implement change quickly?

Some say no… but new cancer “super jabs” 🚀 show it can.

We’ve just launched 2 new measures on OpenPrescribing Hospitals:

👉 Nivolumab hospitals.openprescribing.net/measures/niv...

👉 Atezolizumab hospitals.openprescribing.net/measures/ate...

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Reposted by Brian

Ben Goldacre @bengoldacre.bsky.social · 13d

COME TO OUR CONFERENCE!

Lots of people work on medicines data: researchers; but also "medicines optimisation" teams, using data to directly improve NHS care; and teams who build data tools. These clans rarely meet... Until now! Join us, Dec 10th, in Oxford.

www.bennett.ox.ac.uk/events/2025-...

The two-day 2025 Bennett Institute Medicines Symposium will take place at Jesus College in Oxford on 10–11 December 2025.

Home | OpenPrescribing Hospitals

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Brian @brianmackenna.bsky.social · 13d

OpenPrescribing Hospitals is free and open to all

No logins, no barriers.

Explore the measures and see how your hospital compares:

hospitals.openprescribing.net

hospitals.openprescribing.net

Brian @brianmackenna.bsky.social · 13d

Why does this matter?
✅ More convenient for patients
✅ Less time in hospital
✅ Saves NHS resources

This is an incredible achievement by hospital teams across England. Delivering change safely, quickly, and under huge pressure. 👏

Brian @brianmackenna.bsky.social · 13d

What the data show is phenomenal.

Hospitals switched to Phesgo almost overnight.

Atezolizumab is showing the same rapid adoption.

Too early to say for nivolumab. But you can follow along with the new measures to see how your trust is doing.

Brian @brianmackenna.bsky.social · 13d

An aside: I know they aren't literally "super jabs". They are subcutaneous injections - but "super jabs" is what NHSE called them when launching the news NHSE would be launching them!

Measures · Uptake of Phesgo® | OpenPrescribing Hospitals

Brian @brianmackenna.bsky.social · 13d

We often hear: “the NHS can’t implement new treatments quickly or consistently.”

But the hospital prescribing data tell a different story.

Cancers once treated with IV infusions lasting hours can now be treated with quick subcutaneous injections — the “super jabs” 💉

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Brian @brianmackenna.bsky.social · 13d

To go alongside our slightly older measure on Phesgo

hospitals.openprescribing.net/measures/phe...

hospitals.openprescribing.net

Changes in medication safety indicators in England throughout the covid-19 pandemic using OpenSAFELY: population based, retrospective cohort study of 57 million patients using federated analytics

Brian @brianmackenna.bsky.social · 13d

Can the NHS implement change quickly?

Some say no… but new cancer “super jabs” 🚀 show it can.

We’ve just launched 2 new measures on OpenPrescribing Hospitals:

👉 Nivolumab hospitals.openprescribing.net/measures/niv...

👉 Atezolizumab hospitals.openprescribing.net/measures/ate...

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Reposted by Brian

Brian @brianmackenna.bsky.social · 16d

The mighty @bmjmedicine.bsky.social have joined Bluesky!

Follow them!

It reminded me of our first paper there - PINCER medication safety indicators using OpenSAFELY

doi.org/10.1136/bmjm...

Short thread to remind everyone else!

Objective To implement complex, PINCER (pharmacist led information technology intervention) prescribing indicators, on a national scale with general practice data to describe the impact of the covid-1...

Changes in medication safety indicators in England throughout the covid-19 pandemic using OpenSAFELY: population based, retrospective cohort study of 57 million patients using federated analytics

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Brian @brianmackenna.bsky.social · 16d

Read the full paper here

doi.org/10.1136/bmjm...

And once again – welcome @bmjmedicine.bsky.social!!

Objective To implement complex, PINCER (pharmacist led information technology intervention) prescribing indicators, on a national scale with general practice data to describe the impact of the covid-1...

Brian @brianmackenna.bsky.social · 16d

There was some transient blood test delays….

Encouragingly, most indicators recovered by late 2021. NHS practices and teams showed remarkable resilience in protecting medication safety under huge strain.

The delays were probably a sign of correct prioritisation during the lockdown.

Brian @brianmackenna.bsky.social · 16d

Now for the questions - did hazardous prescribing increase during the pandemic?

Nope

Potentially hazardous prescribing was largely unaffected by the covid-19 pandemic in primary care health records in England.

Changes in medication safety indicators in England throughout the covid-19 pandemic using OpenSAFELY: population based, retrospective cohort study of 57 million patients using federated analytics

Brian @brianmackenna.bsky.social · 16d

Read the paper for the detailed methods but briefly

we were able to analyse adherence to a whole range of complex pathways in the timelines of every patient in the country, securely, with their data remaining in situ, with a single command.

This is a revolutionary - 57millions peoples records

Objective To implement complex, PINCER (pharmacist led information technology intervention) prescribing indicators, on a national scale with general practice data to describe the impact of the covid-1...

Brian @brianmackenna.bsky.social · 16d

Now in the pandemic - you can’t really have everyone doing this manual data labour because there are more important things to do!

So we set out to see if we could use OpenSAFELY to monitor the PINCER measures.

As everyone suspected that meds safety went out the window with COVID-19 priorities.

Brian @brianmackenna.bsky.social · 16d

To evaluate the pharmacists work - the PINCER team monitored how certain medicine safety measures changed in GP. To collect this data-individual practices download their data and send it to Nottingham.

This is fine - but slow, not everyone sends its, not everyone measures at the same time etc etc

Brian @brianmackenna.bsky.social · 16d

Background: PINCER is a pharmacist-led hazardous prescribing primary care.

Full RCT here doi.org/10.1016/s014...

TLDR: it works

It’s one of the NHS’s flagship safety programmes.

One of the reasons the NHS invested substantially in pharmacy folk in general practice over the past decade.

Brian @brianmackenna.bsky.social · 16d

We used OpenSAFELY to analyse 57 million patient records from over 6,000 general practices – one of the largest medication safety analyses ever done in England........and possibly ever in the world!

Changes in medication safety indicators in England throughout the covid-19 pandemic using OpenSAFELY: population based, retrospective cohort study of 57 million patients using federated analytics

Brian @brianmackenna.bsky.social · 16d

The mighty @bmjmedicine.bsky.social have joined Bluesky!

Follow them!

It reminded me of our first paper there - PINCER medication safety indicators using OpenSAFELY

doi.org/10.1136/bmjm...

Short thread to remind everyone else!

Objective To implement complex, PINCER (pharmacist led information technology intervention) prescribing indicators, on a national scale with general practice data to describe the impact of the covid-1...

We're hiring researchers to work on OpenSAFELY | Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science

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Reposted by Brian

Will Hulme @wjchulme.bsky.social · 16d

As part of this hiring round we're looking for a post-doc to work with us on OVERTURE, a new NIHR-funded programme on vaccine effectiveness for flu, Covid-19, and RSV. You'll use OpenSAFELY to establish and apply optimal methods for estimating VE in population-scale data

Will Hulme @wjchulme.bsky.social · 16d

We are hiring researchers! We do lots of fun and important work with NHS data - epidemiology, service monitoring, developing analytic tools and methods, more.

Deadline 3 October.

Get in touch if you'd like to know more.

www.bennett.ox.ac.uk/blog/2025/09...

Come and work with us! We’re looking for Epidemiologists / Health Data Scientists to join our growing research team.

Bennett Prize in OpenPrescribing | Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science

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Brian @brianmackenna.bsky.social · 18d

Have you seen OpencodeCounts from @bennettoxford.bsky.social ??

Powered by that dataset

bennettoxford.github.io/opencodecoun...

Shiny App

bennettoxford.github.io

Reposted by Brian

Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science @bennettoxford.bsky.social · 21d

📢Competition time!

We are launching the Bennett Prize in OpenPrescribing to celebrate the best user-led projects!

Have you improved safety, saved money or improved prescribing in your organisation using OpenPrescribing?
Enter now!

Find out more here 👇
www.bennett.ox.ac.uk/blog/2025/08...

We’re launching the Bennett Prize in OpenPrescribing to celebrate the best user-led projects using OpenPrescribing. Enter by sharing your work online and sending us the link — all kinds of entries wel...