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15 January 2024
Issue no. 159
ISSN 2632-3389
The perils of too many pills Susannah Hickling looks at the issue of polypharmacy and asks if we are over prescribing to the detriment of patient health? Have you ever looked at all the tablets you take and wondered why you don’t rattle? Or perhaps you’ve contemplated the prescription drugs an elderly relative is struggling with and puzzled over what they were all for. You’d be justified, given that polypharmacy – taking five or more drugs – is an issue everywhere and, of course, given our county’s ageing demographic, it’s common in Somerset too. And, as Shaun Green, NHS Somerset’s deputy director of clinical effectiveness and head of medicines management, points out: “Our population also has some of the highest national prevalence of chronic long-term conditions – these conditions often require multiple medications prescribed to make patients stay well and to reduce the risk of harm.” Adam Dance, 31, Liberal Democrat Prospective But there are also dangers inherent in taking a large number of prescription drugs, Parliamentary candidate for Yeovil and Tom Power, 22, a on top of it being a factor in medicine shortages and representing a huge cost to Conservative Somerset Councillor say it is important for the NHS. My mother, 93 and bedbound in a Taunton nursing home, is a case in young people to get engaged in politics and vote. point. (See p28) She was recently decidedly under the weather, sleeping a lot, barely touching her food and showing scant interest in what was going on around her. Concerned, the nurse had a blood test done. It showed her kidney function was under par. Her heart rate and blood pressure were low as well. I could sense the underlying fear at the home that my mum was going into an inexorable decline. But the GP decided to review her drugs, suspecting they might be causing the problem. She was taking eight, including a laxative and paracetamol “in case” she was in pain (my mother hasn’t once complained about pain in the year and a half she’s been in a home).Turn to p26
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