Pharmacists should target medicines use reviews (MURs) to patients with learning disabilities, to tackle the over-prescribing of psychiatric medicines, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) has said. 

People with learning disabilities are not usually the first to be given an MUR,  RPS English pharmacy board chair Sandra Gidley told C+D. But she stressed many of this patient group are inappropriately prescribed psychotropic drugs for behaviour management.

NHS England said an estimated 35,000 adults with a learning disability are being prescribed either an antipsychotic, an antidepressant or both, without appropriate clinical justification. Long-term use of these drugs can lead to significant weight gain, organ failure, and in some cases, death, it stressed. 

Make a note of these patients

Ms Gidley told C+D: “The first thing pharmacists should be doing is marking someone with a learning disability on their notes. The second thing is they should take time to do an MUR if someone is on [psychotropic] medicines.”

“If there are concerns, they could flag them up to the GP surgery," she said.

Ms Gidley stressed that pharmacists are also in an “ideal position” to reinforce the message the GP has given about when to stop taking the medicines. “We can’t amend the prescription but we can do the MUR, help support the GP and help support the [[patient's] family,” she added.

Her comments follow a pledge made by the RPS and the Department of Health to tackle psychotropic over-prescribing to those with learning disabilities. The pledge was also signed by the other royal colleges.

The pledge should “act as a trigger” to all health professionals to ensure that over-prescribing becomes a thing of the past, she added.

How do you support patients with learning disabilities? 

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