What problem are we trying to tackle?

The general public and healthcare professionals overestimate the benefits and underestimate the harms of medical interventions over non-drug strategies. Patients need more trusted, culturally competent and accessible information about their conditions.

There can often be an unequal relationship between the clinician and the patient, with patients not feeling listened to or confident to challenge and be more involved in decisions about their care. This can lead to the prescribing of medicines that do not address the patient’s issues or take into account their preferences.

Our aims in south east London:

• For patients to feel empowered to engage in dialogue to share what matters to them most during decision-making about their medicines and their health (NOR report R10)
• To raise public awareness about overprescribing and gain insights on people’s understanding, perspectives and attitudes towards overprescribing (NOR report R9)

The work that we are doing:

• Overprescribing patient engagement project
• SEL Polypharmacy Community of Practice
• SEL waste medicines with public engagement mini-pilot

Pilots described are based on preliminary results and will be updated once a full evaluation has been concluded.