Guide to medicines review launched
pharmafile | October 22, 2003 | News story | |Â Â Â
The medicines review process could transform the quality of prescribing if used properly, according to a new guide.
"Room for review A guide to medication review: the agenda for patients, practitioners and managers', was published in response to requests from health practitioners and policy-makers for more information on medicines review.
Medicines review is meant to make the best use of medicines by reaching agreements with patients about their medication. It is hoped that in this way problems with medicines and with their waste can be reduced.
In the guide's forward, Prof Marshall Marinker, founding Professor in General Practice at the University of Leicester and a visiting Professor of General Practice at Guys, King's and St Thomas' Medical School, said that if implemented correctly and with sensitivity to patients' individual needs, medication review, would transform both the quality of prescribing and the benefit to patients.
There are moves to implement processes for medication review but these are hampered by the lack of a common understanding of what a medication review should consist of and how to provide it, the guide says.
The guide focuses mainly on how elderly patients and those with long-term conditions can be more involved in the management of their conditions and aims to help achieve the medication review milestones stipulated in the National Service Framework for Older People.
It was developed in collaboration with the National Collaborative Medicines Management Services Programmes and the DoH-funded Task Force on Medicines Partnership, with input from both patients and practitioners.
The guide provides practical guidelines for practitioners, a common set of definitions and principles for medicines review, details case studies to highlight best practice, and provides ideas on how a range of healthcare professionals can most effectively and efficiently be used.
A supporting website has also been developed, and contains practical tools for both practitioners and patients.
