Cheshire and Merseyside Area Prescribing Committee (APC)

The Cheshire and Merseyside Area Prescribing Committee (APC) is a professional group consisting of GPs, pharmacists and other key healthcare professionals. It has replaced both the Pan Mersey APC and Cheshire Formulary Group as the ICB has emerged.

The APC aims to improve the use of medicines in terms of safety, clinical effectiveness, cost effective care, and ecological profile, across its partnership organisations. It does this by deciding which medicines are recommended and not recommended for local use and developing supporting advice for best use of medicines. Recommendations are made following agreement by stakeholders, informed by systematic evidence evaluation and consultation.eek to identify and champion the appropriate use of medicines across Cheshire & Merseyside taking into account cost effectiveness, quality, equity and above all, patient safety.

The Committee is responsible for making recommendations of medicines, especially high-cost medicines, across the ICB footprint.

Most of the information on their website is intended for healthcare professionals. Members of the public seeking advice on medicine related issues are advised to contact their GP, pharmacist or nurse. Alternatively, they may call 111 for the NHS non-emergency service.

https://www.cheshireandmerseysideformulary.nhs.uk/default.asp is where you can access the new formulary information and also contains legacy formulary links to both Pan Mersey and Cheshire formularies.