Project overview
Creating a Toolkit to Help Social Prescribers Support Medication Reviews.
Many people in the UK take five or more regular medicines. This increases the risk of side effects, hospital visits, and even early death. This is linked with overprescribing, which refers to use of a medicine where there is a better non-medicine alternative, or the use is not best suited for the individual patient's circumstances and wishes. The government wants to address overprescribing by doing more Structured Medication Reviews (SMRs). These are regular check-ups where a GP or pharmacist looks at all the medicines a patient takes to see if they are still needed or doing more harm than good. But GPs are very busy, and it’s hard for them to carry out all the reviews needed.
Social prescribers (SPs) help people find non-medical support like exercise classes, social groups, or advice services. These activities can often help patients feel better without needing more medicine. The government is interested in involving SPs in medication reviews, but it’s not clear how best to do this.
Our research has shown that SPs can:
• Help find patients who may need a review
• Refer them to non-medical options
• Provide follow-up care and suggest alternatives
But SPs work differently in each GP practice, and staff are worried about increased workload, unclear responsibilities and lack of training. They also said they need more support and clear guidance.
Our solution is to create a toolkit.
A toolkit is a set of helpful resources that:
• Support teams in planning and carrying out medication reviews
• Help SPs work closely with GPs and pharmacists
• Can be adapted to suit different practices and ways of working
• Use clear, easy-to-understand information
What we’re doing:
• Bringing together a group of experts (including SPs, GPs, pharmacists, patients and carers) to co-produce the toolkit. This group (8–10 people) will take part in about 4 workshops (online and in-person).
• Speak to people in the wider community, especially those who don’t usually attend medicine reviews about their views and how to involve them.
• Use all this input to design the toolkit and agree how we’ll measure if it’s working.
• Create a plan to share the toolkit nationally with professional bodies and NHS leaders.
Why this matters:
This project aims to help reduce unnecessary medicines, improve patient health, and save NHS resources. By working as a team, GPs, SPs and other staff can give more personalised care. In the future, we’ll test the toolkit in GP surgeries to see how well it works. We will apply for further funding to test the usefulness of the toolkit in primary care practices.
Many people in the UK take five or more regular medicines. This increases the risk of side effects, hospital visits, and even early death. This is linked with overprescribing, which refers to use of a medicine where there is a better non-medicine alternative, or the use is not best suited for the individual patient's circumstances and wishes. The government wants to address overprescribing by doing more Structured Medication Reviews (SMRs). These are regular check-ups where a GP or pharmacist looks at all the medicines a patient takes to see if they are still needed or doing more harm than good. But GPs are very busy, and it’s hard for them to carry out all the reviews needed.
Social prescribers (SPs) help people find non-medical support like exercise classes, social groups, or advice services. These activities can often help patients feel better without needing more medicine. The government is interested in involving SPs in medication reviews, but it’s not clear how best to do this.
Our research has shown that SPs can:
• Help find patients who may need a review
• Refer them to non-medical options
• Provide follow-up care and suggest alternatives
But SPs work differently in each GP practice, and staff are worried about increased workload, unclear responsibilities and lack of training. They also said they need more support and clear guidance.
Our solution is to create a toolkit.
A toolkit is a set of helpful resources that:
• Support teams in planning and carrying out medication reviews
• Help SPs work closely with GPs and pharmacists
• Can be adapted to suit different practices and ways of working
• Use clear, easy-to-understand information
What we’re doing:
• Bringing together a group of experts (including SPs, GPs, pharmacists, patients and carers) to co-produce the toolkit. This group (8–10 people) will take part in about 4 workshops (online and in-person).
• Speak to people in the wider community, especially those who don’t usually attend medicine reviews about their views and how to involve them.
• Use all this input to design the toolkit and agree how we’ll measure if it’s working.
• Create a plan to share the toolkit nationally with professional bodies and NHS leaders.
Why this matters:
This project aims to help reduce unnecessary medicines, improve patient health, and save NHS resources. By working as a team, GPs, SPs and other staff can give more personalised care. In the future, we’ll test the toolkit in GP surgeries to see how well it works. We will apply for further funding to test the usefulness of the toolkit in primary care practices.
