Talking Meds - A PrescQIPP podcast
Engaging conversations about medicines-related dilemmas.
Talking Meds is hosted by Jonathan Underhill who, every two weeks, will chat to a fantastic guest about current medical issues and clinical dilemmas.
Jonathan has a background as a hospital clinical pharmacist but worked for many years at the National Prescribing Centre (NPC) developing innovative ways of teaching therapeutics, evidence-based medicine and clinical decision making to prescribers and their support teams. Until recently, he worked at NICE as a consultant clinical adviser in their Medicines Optimisation Team. He is now Medicines Clinical Adviser at PrescQIPP.
Jonathan and his guests will discuss topics such as new guidance from NICE on menopause, asthma, depression deprescribing and insomnia; how to tackle penicillin allergy de-labelling.
There will also be a series on ’Sensible prescribing in Older people with Jonathan and Lucy’, with consultant geriatrician and author Lucy Pollock.
PrescQIPP is a Community Interest Company. We operate on a not-for-profit basis for the benefit of NHS patients and organisations and help NHS organisations to improve medicines-related care to patients. Find out more here: https://www.prescqipp.info/
Talking Meds - A PrescQIPP podcast
8. Festive prescribing in older people with Jonathan and Lucy; Treatment breaks
Welcome to this special festive edition of Talking Meds and the Presqipp podcast, engaging conversations about medicines-related dilemmas. Today, your host Jonathan Underhill, Medicines Clinical Adviser at Presqipp, and Dr Lucy Pollock, consultant geriatrician and author, talk about drug holidays, often known as treatment breaks.
Sometimes it can be helpful to consider temporarily stopping a person’s medicines in order to take into account what really matters to them at a particular point of their lives. Jonathan and Lucy discuss when this might be appropriate, particularly around the festive period where everyday life might be slightly different for some people.
This includes situations where, for example, symptoms that were previously troublesome are controlled and the person wishes to see if they can manage without the medicine for a short time. They discuss the types of medicines or conditions this may apply to, in particular those where there is limited prognostic value (that is, where stopping taking them is unlikely to affect their chances of having a relapse of their condition or having an event that will affect their longer term health). This can help reduce the overall burden of the medicines someone takes, reduce the risk of them having an adverse event, and probably improve their overall quality of life.
They also discuss the age-old question of whether its ok to have an alcoholic beverage of your preference at Christmas, always in moderation of course!
PrescQIPP have recently published a bulletin with accompanying resource pack on treatment breaks, available to subscribers here:
Bulletin 358. Medicine treatment breaks
The Aural Apothecary podcast is available on all the usual podcast media channels. You can find the website here with an archive of episodes. The episode with John Seddon which is discussed by Jonathan and Lucy can be found here.
A new episode of Talking Meds will be available every other Friday.
If you have feedback or suggestions for future topics and guests please submit them to talkingmeds@prescqipp.info
PrescQIPP is funded by the NHS for the NHS, and our aim is to improve medicines-related care for patients. We do this by producing high quality evidence-based resources and training, and by facilitating networks between NHS organisations and professionals.
The majority of pharmacists and other healthcare professionals across the UK can access our resources by registering and logging on to our website. If you have any difficulty accessing the website you can email help@prescqipp.info and we’ll aim to sort things out for you.
Find out more about PrescQIPP here