Episode 9: Medication checkups can be good for patients and make you feel more contented

THE CASE
It is Friday, the end of a long and busy week and a sunny weekend is calling you. Your tasks this afternoon includes seeing some patients who have complex comorbidity and have been booked in for medication reviews. Next up is a longstanding patient, aged 76 who is on 14 different medication, for several different conditions, 2 more drugs than she was on just 3 months ago. How does this feel? Perhaps a bit daunting? Perhaps the clinician isn’t confident they know what to do about this polypharmacy although they have a gut feeling that this many drugs in an older person could be a problem. Perhaps they feel that this review is a dull chore, or that any attempt to reduce medications will be resisted by the patient and cause criticism from the specialist teams who are involved in her care. Perhaps they feel alone and that other people are not working on reducing medications

Show Notes

1. The Mechanics of Tackling Overprescribing and Problematic Polypharmacy Health Innovation Network (HIN) document which includes the evidence base, the car analogies, and practical advice for both clinicians and care boards/systems
2. Health Innovation Network Polypharmacy: getting the balance right programme
3. Resources to support patients having a Structured Medication Review
4. Aural Apothecary Podcast
5. Consultation skills for optimising medication: A DExTruS approach to personalising drug treatments
6. MedStopper