Who, what, where, when - how do insulin biosimilars fit in practice?

This session is organised and funded by Mylan UK Healthcare Ltd

Getting the Best Value from Medicine and Pharmacy are key pillars of NHS long term sustainability plans and this could be achieved by the development of prescribing eco-systems containing “off patent” competitors such as biosimilars and generics. With £350M of Insulin spent annually in the UK it is a significant and important high cost medicine to review and biosimilar insulin offers the potential for significant cost savings. As the experts in medicine Pharmacists in all sectors have a medicine optimisation leadership role to play in this area.

The session will provide a multi-disciplinary perspective on understanding and leading change in this area from two National diabetes leaders in their respective professions. Both will share their experience and reflections from clinical practice including a case study of real-life implementation from Somerset CCG.

This session is suitable for Advanced Level One (RPS APF).

Vicky Ruszala is a specialist pharmacist at North Bristol NHS Trust. She works in a specialist capacity with the diabetes and endocrinology team, trying to improve inpatient experience for those with diabetes and reducing errors in diabetes care.  She leads the NBT team quality improvement program, with a current focus on reducing insulin errors and inpatient hypoglycaemia.

Currently she is on secondment to Bath and North East Somerset CCG as a specialist pharmacist in the integrated diabetes service. As well as contributing to strategic changes in the systemic management of diabetes, she is also running independent specialist clinics in GP practices to aid achievement of the three key NICE targets.

For the last 7 years she has been part of the UKCPA Diabetes Group committee, which has allowed her to contribute to raising the standard of diabetes care at a national level, in all healthcare settings. She been the joint chair of this group for the past 5 years.  Currently she is the pharmacist lead of the endocrinology Clinical Reference Group for NHS England and has also worked as pharmacist representative on the guideline development group for the new NICE Type 1 diabetes guideline.

She has been published in a range of journals on different aspects of diabetes care. As a speaker she has had the privilege of attending and speaking at a range of national and international conferences. In addition, she works locally providing diabetes education for primary and secondary care professionals, including pharmacists, nurses and doctors.