Patients still lack information about medicines, surveys shows
Patients still do not receive enough information about their care, although overall they rate the NHS highly, according to the latest surveys
carried out by the Healthcare Commission.
The commission published the results of five surveys, involving over
300,000 patients in 568 NHS trusts in England, last week. Pharmacists
are not mentioned in the report, despite the identification of medicines-related
problems. A spokeswoman for the Healthcare Commission confirmed that
the surveys did not cover pharmacy.
Compared with results of the same survey two years ago, fewer adult inpatients
reported that the purpose of their medicine and its side effects had
been explained to them. However, in primary care more people said that
they received advice about their medicines from their GP compared with
the figure for a comparative study carried out in 2003.
Among the other findings are that one-fifth of smokers who would like
help to give up are not
receiving it and more patients are obtaining GP appointments within two
working days than in 2003. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal
Acrobat
Reader