Summary
In a new series of Inside Health Dr Mark Porter explores the growing initiative to 'deprescribe'. The last two decades have seen a dramatic increase in prescriptions and over the counter medication use with one third of people aged over 75 taking at least six medicines. Evidence suggests a person taking ten or more medicines is 3 times more likely to be admitted to hospital. Yet this is not just an issue in the elderly. Inside Health visits a children's ward with a new drug optimising service leading the way in appropriate prescribing for kids. Mark Porter investigates why such a huge number of people are on multiple medications and discusses the barriers to change with tips from leading experts trying to achieve a new approach.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Greg Jenna and good news, Your Dead to Me is back for a new series. Here we go. Yes, we'll explore Emperor Nero's notorious reign with Professor Marybeard and Patton Oswald. I would not want my daughter having the remote control, not alone an empire. We'll dissect the decadent life of Philippe Duke-Dor-Leon with Tom Allen. I've often tried to pretend I'm an aristocrat and being very quickly knocked down. |
| 0:23.0 | And there'll be so much more with comedians like Olga Koch, Mike Mosniak and Rihalina. |
| 0:26.9 | I'm excited. |
| 0:27.6 | You're dead to me. |
| 0:28.5 | The comedy podcast that takes history seriously. |
| 0:30.9 | Listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:34.5 | BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:38.3 | Hello, we're back and starting this new series with a special programme on a relatively new concept, |
| 0:45.4 | but one that's become dear to our hearts at inside health. |
| 0:49.1 | Deperscribing, taking people off medication that they no longer need, |
| 0:53.8 | may not benefit from, or which may |
| 0:56.5 | actually be harming them. It's an issue we've been looking into since visiting a hospital |
| 1:01.6 | falls clinic in 2015. One of the patients we met had fallen and broken his shoulder. |
| 1:08.2 | Have you got any problems with blood pressure? No, it's all under control. |
| 1:11.3 | So you're on tablets for blood pressure, are you? Can you remember what they are? Tablets are all sorts. I've got an list in my pocket. How many are? Yeah. Need a wheelbarrow to get them. God, Ramapril, which will make you fall over? Sparinal lactone, make you fall over, frusamide make you fall over. |
| 1:28.0 | 16. |
| 1:30.1 | Quite a nice little cocktail, isn't it? |
| 1:36.3 | A cocktail of 16 medicines that turned out to contain four that could make that patient lightheaded, making falls more likely. |
| 1:39.2 | And he's far from alone. |
| 1:40.4 | The number of older people taking five or more medicines in the UK has quadrupled |
| 1:45.8 | over the last two decades. So that's from one in eight in the late 90s to one in two today. |
| 1:53.5 | Not that you need to be old. In Liverpool, Dr Dan Hawkeut leads a deprescribing ward round |
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