Developing a strategic approach for IV therapy in the community

The development of home intravenous therapy (IVT) services is of benefit to patients and organizations, particularly as it can facilitate early discharge from hospital or avoid hospital admission. However in providing an IVT education/refresher programme to local primary care trusts, we have found that not all of them, by their own admission, could engage in the expansion of IVT services as they did not have measures in place to support robust service delivery. Building on the authors' recent experience of assisting staff, via an education/refresher programme, to update their services, this article offers direction to other PCTs who may be struggling to update their services in times of reform and unprecedented change within the health service.