‘Chemical cosh’ checks in every care home
Pharmacists are to carry out checks on every care home amid fears that thousands of elderly people are being sedated with a “chemical cosh”. Simon Stevens, the head of the NHS, will today order the deployment of hundreds of pharmacists to review medication being routinely doled out. Last night he raised fears that a generation of pensioners was being doped up on a cocktail of drugs, which did more harm than good, and forced up hospital admissions.
PHARMACISTS are to carry out checks on every care home in the country amid fears that thousands of elderly people are being sedated with the “chemical cosh”.
Simon Stevens, the head of the NHS, will today order the deployment of hundreds of pharmacists to review medication being routinely doled out.
Last night he raised fears that a generation of pensioners were being increasingly doped up on a cocktail of drugs, which is causing more harm than it solves, and fuelling record hospital admissions. He spoke as new figures showed the number of prescriptions issued for painkillers and anti-depressants have almost doubled in a decade, with 91million issued last year.
Mr Stevens told The Daily Telegraph: “There’s increasing evidence that our parents and their friends – a whole generation of people in their 70s, 80s and 90s – are being overmedicated in care homes, with bad results.
“Let’s face it, the policy of ‘a pill for every ill’ is often causing frail older people more health problems than it’s solving,” he added, as he outlined a new national policy to review the medicines issued to residents of care homes across England.
One in 10 pensioners over the age of 75 is on at least 10 different drugs, NHS prescribing data shows, with statins, sleeping pills and opiates among the most common medications.
Health officials are to fund 240 pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to go into care homes across the country, working with GPS, starting by assessing the medication of around 180,000 patients.
They are concerned that vulnerable people are being left for years on a cocktail of drugs, leaving them heavily sedated or exposed to dangerous sideeffects which are risking lives and fuelling hospital admissions.
The average care home resident takes seven drugs, with medication for dementia, high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes among those commonly taken.
But some of the drugs interact with each other, while others, such as opiate-based painkillers and sleeping pills, can become addictive or cause major health problems.
Pilot NHS schemes in six areas of the country found such checks could reduce hospital admissions by up to a fifth and ambulance call outs by a third.
One scheme found that every 12 reviews resulted in one less patient ending up being readmitted to hospital, after being discharged to a care home.
Sandra Gidley, chairman of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, welcomed the schemes, which will be rolled out across the country. She said: “Our overstretched NHS is crying out for solutions and this one is bang on target. Too often, elderly patients were put on extra drugs, without being taken off existing medication, leaving many taking dangerous combinations.”