An evaluation by patients of pharmacist-led medicines management in southern England

Aim: To assess patient satisfaction with the domiciliary service provided by the medicines management team (MMT) within the Woodlands elderly resource team in Poole, Dorset. This team aims to prevent hospital admission, and to improve the patient experience of pharmaceutical care.
Design: Structured interview in domiciliary setting.
Subjects and settings: The study population, drawn from users of the service, comprised 22 men and 33 women with a mean age of 79.8 years interviewed in their own homes. Patients were asked to respond to 18 questions, three of which required a “yes”, “no” or “don’t know” response and the other questions used a five-point Likert scale.
Results: 73% of respondents were unaware they had problems taking medicines before the initial MMT visit; however 89% agreed that interventions made helped them to take their medicines correctly. 84% of subjects were accepting of changes made to their medicines by the MMT even when they did not understand the changes. A high proportion of the study population understood and accepted the need for the MMT to discuss their medicines with their GP. Overall, 78% of patients were very satisfied and 22% satisfied with the service provided by the team.
Conclusions: The evaluation suggests that the MMT satisfies its key aims: good levels of communication, concordance and information-sharing is achieved between patients and the team. Research suggests these attributes are valuable in optimising pharmaceutical care.