The Patient Experience of a Paramedic-Pharmacist Referral Pathway for Clinical Medication Reviews

Falls in people aged 65 years and over are a common reason for calling the emergency ambulance service. Falls can be serious, with about 1 in 20 people having to be taken to hospital because they have been injured. Thankfully, in more than 4 out of 10 cases, people are not seriously injured and can be left at home. However, it is important that the reason for the fall is found and future falls are prevented where possible.

Yorkshire Ambulance Service can already make a referral to another local service to get specialist practical help for falls prevention when people are left at home after a fall. Research has shown that the safe use of medicines can prevent future falls, but that did not form. Now a new service has been set up for Yorkshire Ambulance Service to refer patients to the Leeds GP Confederation. A pharmacist working in the patients GP surgery will undertake a review of the patient's use of their medicines.

We would like to find out about how patients feel about using their medicines before and after the medicines review by a pharmacist. We would also like to know how they feel about the medicines review itself, to help decide whether this scheme should continue or be expanded to other areas. To do this, we are going to send a questionnaire to patients who receive a medicines review. The questionnaire will be sent by post, take about 10 minutes to fill out and include a stamped addressed envelope so people who take part will not have to pay for postage.