Niall: Messages to others – Engage with your health professionals
Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.
Niall
Male
Age at interview: 45
Number of medicines: 7
Cultural background: British (Caucasian)
Niall thinks it a good idea to ask questions of health professionals to fully explore all the available options regarding medicines. He finds they welcome discussion with their patients.
Discuss it with your GP and your chemist, because there may be other ways to do it. There may be more appropriate medications, there may be different regimens you can go on, different ways of taking those medications and it may even be time to reassess what you're taking. Are these now the best things we can take? I think a lot of people end up just getting into a routine. ‘I take these medications and that's who I am as a patient. I'm a diabetic who takes this, this and this.’ I think it can be useful to go, OK, why am I doing this? Is this our best option? Ask your GP and it's their job to discuss it and to advise ... But if you have questions, ask people, ask your GP, ask your chemist. It's their job to tell you, actually. I find a lot of clinicians are pleased when people ask. It allows them to show off their expertise, but also helps them do their job better. They're aware that they are offering a little more value than just writing scripts and saying, ‘Take that down to the chemist.’ They are more engaged and you're more engaged in your health and they appreciate that.
I think a lot of clinicians like to have patients who are aware of what's happened to them and will question, will ask and will be part of that, because an engaged patient is also one who is more likely to stay with their treatment and maintain their health by taking their medication or having an interest in what's happening to them, whereas the patient who is a bit more passive, may be perhaps a bit more prone to forget or lapse or not make all the lifestyle changes that could benefit them as much as they might.
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.