Who is this guidance targeted at?
Polypharmacy guidance: Appropriate prescribing making medicines safe, effective and sustainable 2026-2029
Everyone, including patients, policy makers and healthcare professionals, has a role to play in ensuring that when people are taking multiple medicines that they only take the medication they require, and it is safe and appropriate.
Recommendations have been based on the best evidence available. More research is needed and there are large gaps in knowledge. The guidance therefore has used expert opinion and contains a large range of realistic case studies that aim to give pragmatic advice on how to manage the many difficult situations where evidence is lacking. It will take all members of the healthcare team to bring about significant improvement in this area, and utilising the multidisciplinary team for more complex interventions should be considered.
Multidisciplinary holistic person-centred care
Click on the image to view a larger version
The core principle of Polypharmacy Guidance: Appropriate Prescribing - Making medicines safe, effective, and sustainable 2026-2029 is the holistic person-centred 7-Steps medication review. The principles should be considered at all critical stages of the medication use process: prescribing; reviewing; dispensing; communicating and reconciling. This is of particular importance at initiation of treatment to support shared decision-making between the individual (and/or carers, and/or welfare proxies) and the healthcare professional.
Individuals play a vital role, if provided with the right information, tools and resources to make informed decisions about their medicines. Although many of the resources provided are aimed at healthcare professionals, the ManageMeds app, patient leaflets and revised Medication Sick Day Guidance and Patient Reported Outcomes Measures (PROMs) are available to aid individual understanding and involvement, through shared decision-making. A printable leaflet about polypharmacy reviews for patients and carers has also been developed to download. This leaflet explains what a 7-Steps medicine review is, the benefits, what to expect and how to prepare.