This is my first commentary published by the Health and Social Care Academy following the ALLIANCE 2MExperts Conference. 

One delegate at the 2 Million Expert Voices conference expressed her frustration with the communications skills of clinicians: 

“If you don't know what's wrong with you it is hard to find out from doctors and surgeons. They have a language all of their own. They went to medical school for seven years to learn this language. To have any idea what they are saying I would have to spend a week with a pile of medical dictionaries. They need to tell me in my language not theirs.”

The workshop on medicines was about levelling the playing field between the patient and the many clinicians and scientists whose work is focused on helping them.

The clear message from delegates was that, while better informed advocates are better equipped to represent the views of patients, the clinicians and researchers themselves need to embrace the culture shift to patients knowing more, and to realise that the earlier they engage with its eventual users, the better their medicines or clinical services will ultimately be.

The grandly named European Patients’ Academy on Therapeutic Innovation (EUPATI) has a simple slogan: ‘No research about us without us’.

EUPPATI is a five-year partnership programme that has been bringing together patient organisations, academics, non-profits and medicines companies to give patients an informed voice in research decisions.

The ALLIANCE’s Irene Oldfather, Scotland’s representative on EUPATI, says detailed knowledge of a complex system is helping put patients at the core of medicines research and development: 

“By training patient experts, by which I mean patients themselves, carers, patient advocates and volunteers, we are trying to redress the balance.” 

Where EUPATI is about shaping future treatments, one programme that seeks to shift the balance of power for patients now is called SIMPATHY: Stimulating Innovative Management of Polypharmacy and Adherence in The Elderly. 

Polypharmacy is defined as the use of four or more different medicines by one patient. Adherence, also known as compliance, is the extent to which a patient takes the medicines prescribed to them in the way they should to get best results. 

Research shows half of elderly people with long term conditions do not take their medicines in the way intended. And the more medicines they take, the less well patients manage. 

The SIMPATHY project is about sharing best practice to change this. It’s not just a local problem. Ten organisations across Europe are involved, of which the Scottish Government is one. 

Central to managing medicines is the pharmacy profession and much of the workshop was devoted to discussing the Scottish Government’s ‘Prescription for Excellence’ policy ambition to release the untapped potential of pharmacists, particularly those working in the community. 

Pharmacists are the right people to answer questions about medicines (if they are asked) and to address concerns. Community pharmacists are increasingly the first port of call (no appointment necessary) for minor ailments, and they have the skills to recognise when something apparently minor may be something more serious. 

With four in ten people living with one or more long term conditions, the workshop heard that most of the time communication between healthcare providers and users does not require detailed knowledge and training – just a strong voice of, and for, users and a willingness of providers to listen.

Read all the blogs from the event at:

http://academy.alliance-scotland.org.uk/category/citizen-bloggers