Why do medicines need managing and who is involved?
Update on Growth in Prescription Volume and Cost Year to December 2005. PPA, 2006). And in a typical hospital, nurses can spend up to 40% of their time administering around 7,000 individual doses each day [1].
However, there is evidence to suggest that people need more help to enable them to make the best possible use of these medicines. For example, up to half of all medicines prescribed are not taken as intended and up to 17% of hospital admissions are related to problems with medicines [4]. This percentage is even higher in some vulnerable groups of people such as those living with long term conditions. 9% of reported patient safety incidents in hospitals are related to medication and medication errors have been estimated to cost the NHS £500million a year in additional days spent in hospital [1].
Medicines management needs to be considered wherever medicines are used. So, medicines management needs to be everyone’s business. It is something that should be recognised, owned and practiced by managers as well as clinical professionals of every discipline. For example, NHS organisations need to ensure that they include medicines management in their corporate and clinical governance and controls assurance arrangements. In addition, patients and their carers need to be empowered and enabled to take an active role in managing their medicines. A major challenge in this respect is to move from a fragmented, sector-specific approach to a fully integrated system and to ensure a common methodology for the selection, procurement, delivery and prescribing etc. of medicines.
References
[1] A Spoonful of Sugar - Medicines Management in NHS Hospitals.
[2] Department of Health ‘An Organisation with a Memory’ report.
[3] NPC document “Modernising Medicines Management”.
[4] Department of Health. Medicines and Older People. Implementing medicines-related aspects of the NSF for older people. 2001. DH, London.