Optimising Medicines for People in Secure Environments

Pharmacy Forum NI has endorsed the RPS Professional Standards for Optimising Medicines for People in Secure Environments 2017 for use in Northern Ireland.

The standards were authored by the NHS England Immigration Removal Centres Medicine Improvement Programme Working Group, with the Health and Justice Sector.  Together they reviewed the RPS Hospital Standards, alongside recommendations made in the Shaw Review, to develop professional standards for optimising medicines for people in secure environments, such as immigration removal centres, prisons and other places of residential detention.

The standards support the commissioning and development of safe, quality services that put patients and their needs first.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society first published the standards in 2017. They can be used by anyone who has a role in optimising and handling medicines (for example pharmacy teams, nursing teams, etc) working in or with the secure environment sector.

The standards have been published in the following two editions:

• Professional standards for optimising medicines for people in secure environments (Immigration Removal Centres – Edition 1)

• Professional standards for optimising medicines for people in secure environments (Prisons, Young Offender Institutions and Secure Training Centres – Edition 2)

  
  

They encourage a multidisciplinary approach between the pharmacy, healthcare and custodial workforce that ensures medicines optimisation is “everybody’s business”. In health and justice settings, medicines optimisation is often led by the pharmacy team, and it is hoped that PFNI endorsement of the standards will support maintenance of high standards in these settings.

December 22, 2025