Professor
Simon Maxwell, from the University of Edinburgh, said Britain has
reached a ‘tipping point’ where many elderly people are taking five or
more drugs – when they often do not need to.
He
insisted that life-saving drugs are only a ‘minuscule’ proportion of
the vast array of expensive tablets being prescribed, which often carry
the risk of side-effects.
And he
warned of the ‘subtle’ psychological impact that taking a large array of
medicines for years on end can have on elderly patients.
Speaking
at the Cheltenham Science Festival, Professor Maxwell explained: ‘It’s
easy to think drugs are being given for serious conditions, for an
infection that might kill you.
‘But that
accounts for a minuscule proportion of prescriptions written. Many
prescriptions are produced to reduce the risk of something happening in
the future or only give a short-term benefit.’
He
said that GPs needed to review their patients’ medications more often,
and carry out controlled trials to see what happens when certain drugs
are withdrawn.
But he revealed that many medics are reluctant to take patients off their pills in case they are found ‘culpable’.
He added: ‘All members of the medical profession want to do their best for patients and we don’t want to get sued.’
Professor
Maxwell went on to say: ‘We are at a tipping point, we’ve got so many
people on so many medicines, a billion prescriptions in England and
Wales each year.
‘The average GP writes 45,000 prescriptions each year. That is a lot of medicines being prescribed by any standards.’
One patient he discussed was an 83-year-old woman called Mabel who had been told to take an astonishing 18 different drugs.
And
he explained that certain drugs – for example statins – were prescribed
to prevent future illnesses, and tended to have only a marginal benefit
for the patient.
But once a patient is prescribed a medicine, he said it is ‘like a train that does not stop’.
Professor Maxwell went on to say: ‘If I get to 95 I don’t want a statin anywhere near me. Are we overmedicated?
For some patients, yes...there are some patients on more medicines than they clearly wish to be.’
While
many patients will feel unqualified to assess the risks of stopping
their medicines, Professor Maxwell said he was hopeful that a new
generation of patients who are ‘internet savvy’ might be better
informed. He also called for more ‘patient advocates’ who could help
patients make decisions about their drugs.
Yesterday
Dr Angela Coulter, a senior research scientist from the University of
Oxford, said: ‘In general in this country there is too much
prescribing.
Are
we always well advised by our doctors? Not always.’ She added: ‘One in
five people now take five medicines a day. It’s quite easy to start
taking pills but stopping is more tricky.’
