In the UK, a third of all people aged 65 years and above regularly take five or more medicines a day. A Kings Fund report in 2013 recognised that using multiple medicines at the same time can be beneficial for individuals. This is known as Appropriate Polypharmacy. But a growing proportion of people experience Problematic Polypharmacy – when the problems of taking medicines outweigh the intended benefits. So recently, there has been much focus on how we can reduce the burden of medicines for individual patients – for example through deprescribing (stopping medicines).
We explore these issues in detail in our TAILOR project. There we focused on how health services can change. In this innovative new project led by Dr Sara McKelvie at the University of Oxford, we are looking at if and how other people and communities can help with the work of deprescribing and reducing problematic polypharmacy.
Specifically we are looking at whether Social Prescribing initiatives, including Link Workers, may play a part. For example, in looking at alternatives to medication that could help people safely and effectively reduce the amount of medicines they use.
Professor Joanne Reeve (Academy of Primary Care, Hull York Medical School) and Professor Dan Lasserson (University of Warwick) are PIs for this project.