Update on Ask About Medicines Week
See also "Ask About Medicines Week" links
|  Gabby Clezy was closely involved in Ask About Medicines Week in Surrey. Here, she wonders whether it was a great success — either nationally or locally |
Following a frantic period of planning and implementing the Surrey initiative
it is timely to sit back and reflect on what we learnt by the exercise
and how this could shape any future programmes.
Local campaign
As reported in P&MM (July/August 2003) I worked in collaboration
with Sally Greensmith, community pharmacy facilitator in west Surrey
and member of Council of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. We designed
a local campaign, which was meant to be fun, driven by a multi-professional
team and led by pharmacists. Sally and I provided the support materials
and gathered a willing band of volunteers. The five primary care trusts
in Surrey were allocated one day of AAMW and were encouraged to use our
materials to stimulate local initiatives. By publicly reporting the planned
campaign we were required to live up to our promise and achieve everything
we had set out to do. Small teams distributed leaflets wearing white
T-shirts emblazoned with the bold orange AAMW logo. Our leaflet gave
examples of questions patients could ask a health professional, along
with useful advice around medicine taking.
Each PCT has its own agenda but all embrace the theory that the patient
must be at the centre of medicines initiatives if we are to achieve good
medicine management. With the PCTs on board, and individual pharmacists
and members of the PCT staff volunteering to distribute our leaflets,
we were on our way to a successful local campaign.
Epilepsy was one area the national campaign highlighted. To support this
Surrey held a communication training evening two weeks before the official
week. This was attended by over 50 professionals and sponsored by MSD
and Astra Zeneca. A specialist in epilepsy from Guildford Hospital gave
a clinical overview of the condition and its treatment while the nursing
lead from the National Centre for Epilepsy woke participants up to the
realities of life as a teenager with this condition. Alcohol, sex and
recreational drug use were discussed as well as strategies for parents
and professionals in discussing these with patients.
To communicate our message and raise the profile of the week press briefings
were sent to local papers and national pharmaceutical magazines. The
key to gaining an editor’s attention is to offer them a prepared
piece — including photos. Medical jargon must be avoided and bullet
point issues, along with a sprinkling of statistics, will ensure that
your article
receives the attention it deserves.
The Surrey campaign was also covered on local radio with Mrs Greensmith
giving interviews to both the BBC and County Sound. On the Monday afternoon,
half-an-hour question and answer session run by a pharmacist appeared
on BBC Southern Counties. All this was good publicity for the week as
well as raising the profile of pharmacy. National campaign
The national campaign provided a credit card-sized prompt card for
patients with tips on how medicine users can make the most of conversations
with a health professional. This was sent to all pharmacies before
October. The cards were well received in our area and our teams gave
these out in addition to our specially designed leaflets. General practices,
hospitals and pharmacies received copies of our local poster and leaflets.
The volunteers believed that more could have been done nationally to
promote the week — increased national press coverage and possibly
stand material suitable for local road shows.
Target sites included hospitals, shopping centres (permission is usually
required from centre managers before any distribution), high streets,
drop in centres, railway stations and charity shops. The volunteers had
differing levels of confidence in meeting the general public with the
more outgoing types relishing the opportunity to walk the streets chatting
to strangers. Others felt more comfortable spending time at a stand where
the public approached them.
This more traditional role could be used to run medication review clinics
or information shops. A campaign must take into account personality differences
and allow room for all types to become involved in the way they feel
most relaxed. Volunteers have filled out evaluation sheets and the information
gained will inform future programmes. This post match reflection is essential
to ensure we are on the right track as we develop new initiatives around
AAMW. Would we do it again?
Yes. It took an enormous amount of time and energy but the grateful
thanks of the many people who received our leaflets made the campaign
worthwhile.
It does not take a major leap of imagination to see that convincing
patients of the need to ask questions, explaining how to ask questions
and highlighting to professionals that the questions should be teased
out and answered in a way that the patient understands is vitally
important.
At the parliamentary launch of the week Rosie Winterton, minister
of health, mentioned that some pharmacists would be approaching people
at
railway stations. This idea may sound unusual but we need to do something
different. It is no longer acceptable to sit in our workplace and expect
patients to come to us with a list of well thought out questions. As
a profession we must be proactive in encouraging patients to talk to
us. Some patients are educated, motivated and vocal but it is the silent
majority we need to reach. This is not rocket science but for those
who remain unconvinced that AAMW was useful I invite them to go out
to the
street and chat to the punters. What did it do for pharmacists?
The experience of those who took part in Surrey will tell you that
it made the public more aware of pharmacists’ skills, both clinical
and communication, as well as highlighting their role as the scientists
on the high street. The material given out will inevitably ensure that
patients are better equipped to receive information about their medicines,
which can only improve concordance in medicine taking.
Where to next?
Each primary care organisation can build on the momentum
that the week initiated. The national AAMW organisation has produced
a useful booklet, “Health
and medicines information, guide and directory”. My PCT is sending
copies to all GP practices, dentists, optometrists and pharmacies. The
booklets are free (paid for by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical
Industry). Postage is £20 per 350.
Individual pharmacists must decide whether or not to involve themselves
and their staff. Some pharmacy staff we met remained unaware of the campaign
but agreed it was a good idea; others had a box of credit card leaflets
at the back of their premises and wondered what they were for. There
was a small cohort who considered this campaign was being imposed upon
them and did not want to join in.
The only solutions to these problems would be to run the campaign again,
and again, and again. It would be good to see television advertisements
giving patients permission to ask their heath professional about medicines.
There should be an expectation that all patients who receive prescription
medicines or who buy them over the counter will receive a briefing, to
their satisfaction, by a health professional or trained staff member.
If this always occurred then we will have gone a long way to reduce waste
and adverse events. Not all patients want to know about their medicines
but all should be given the choice.
For further ideas, visit the web site www.medicines-partnership.org.
Our local campaign involved a multidisciplinary team and has been achieved
on a small budget. We consider it to have been a success and look forward
to building on the lessons learnt from the week. This is only the beginning.
|
