PATIENT INFORMATION
Information for patients and carers about medicines is an essential component of high quality healthcare. In mental healthcare, information available to patients is patchy and often of poor quality, yet there are compelling reasons to improve the situation, including:
The need to obtain informed consent for treatment
Ethical obligations on health professions
The rights enshrined in the NHS Constitution
Recommendations in NICE clinical guidelines
- The need to engage patients more actively in their care
- The need to improve outcomes from the use of medicines
Information must meet a number of minimum requirements:
It must be easily understood and intuitive
It must be evidence-based
It must address issues that are important to patients
Both patients and health professionals must be involved in its development
It should be accessible and easily available during all patient-facing interactions
Information impacts on knowledge, treatment decisions and the therapeutic relationship. It can – and should – be used to achieve a number of related goals.
To educate clinicians
To inform treatment selection and create consistency in therapeutic approaches
To educate patients and carers
To involve patients and carers in treatment decisions
To strengthen the therapeutic alliance between clinicians, patients and carers
To reinforce messages about the importance of adherence
The report below offers a straightforward and systematic approach to providing high quality medicines information that will meet the needs of both patients and clinicians.
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MMH Report Number 3_Patient Information and Severe Mental Illness.pdf Size : 203.872 Kb Type : pdf |