Yikes: a recent audit showed that more than a quarter of care home patients taking antipsychotics are being prescribed them inappropriately. Like you, I'm shocked by this figure; shocked, that is, that it's only 25 per cent. To be honest, the quality and quantity of care home repeat prescribing in general, and antipsychotics in particular, is shocking. And I take the point made in the audit that community pharmacists might just be the catalyst needed to sort it out.

As ever, though, there's another side to the story. GPs are well aware of the risks and adverse publicity around so-called ‘chemical coshes'. I've read loads of earnest, well-meaning articles describing non-drug approaches to behavioural problems in patients with dementia – including manoeuvres like reciting poetry, aromatherapy and dancing.

The problem is, by the time the staff have read The Lady of Shalott, sprayed the air full of Old Spice and resorted to pleading, ‘Mr Smith, why don't you put the matches down and join me in a paso doble?', you can understand why they might be on the phone begging me to prescribe enough tranquilliser to down an elephant.

The quality and quantity of care home repeat prescribing in general, and antipsychotics in particular, is shocking