Implementation and monitoring of decisions by pharmacy and therapeutics committees in South African public sector hospitals

Introduction: The National Drug Policy in South Africa has achieved its objective in establishing and strengthening Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committees (PTCs) in public sector hospitals. However, little is known about the implementation of decisions by PTCs and the monitoring thereof. Consequently, there is a need to investigate this. Areas covered: We sought to address this via an online survey distributed to pharmacists working in public sector hospitals across South Africa with perceived functioning PTCs, with a 32.3% response rate to the survey. Expert commentary: Membership of all PTCs included a pharmacist, who in most cases (51.2%) held the secretariat position. Principal PTC activities were encouraging rational medicine use (RMU) (86.0%), pharmacovigilance (82.6%) and implementing standard treatment guidelines (STGs) (77.9%). Only a third (37.5%) stated that they were using indicators to monitor PTC performance. Where collected, indicator data were mostly used for providing feedback to PTCs (83.3%). Most hospitals (95.1%) implemented PTC decisions; however, 62.0% mentioned guidelines on implementing PTC decisions did not exist in their hospital. The majority of respondents (65.4% and 83.8%, respectively) indicated PTC decisions were evaluated and reviewed in their hospitals. Overall, a high percentage of respondents stated the main activities of PTCs were to enhance RMU as well as implement STGs. However, guidelines on implementation of decisions by PTCs are currently lacking and most PTCs were not monitoring their performance. This needs to be addressed.