Member Article

Quantum Pharmaceutical Group partners with healthcare providers in Dementia Medicine Adherence Programme

The Quantum Pharmaceutical Group, a leading manufacturer and supplier of niche medicines and services to the healthcare sector, is planning to work alongside the South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and Rowlands Pharmacy, to evaluate the effectiveness of using Biodose Connect™ with a tailored education programme to help people with dementia to independently adhere to their treatment regimen and to understand more about their medication.

Biodose Connect™, a unique medicines delivery system, enables live, remote monitoring and management of patient adherence, instantly alerting the patient, carer, clinician or pharmacist if medicines are not taken as prescribed. The live monitoring of medication adherence makes it possible to quickly identify potential lapses in drug treatment regimens and deploy the appropriate intervention promptly.

The proposed evaluation of Biodose Connect™ will be undertaken by Professor Stephen Curran, Consultant in Old Age Psychiatry and Richard Clibbens, Nurse Consultant, from the South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust in Wakefield. Rowlands Pharmacy will provide an integrated Biodose Connect™ dispensing service with individual tailored reviews, pharmacist advice and intervention to support patients and their carers participating in this evaluation.

“Poor medicines adherence for people experiencing dementia can lead to a range of difficulties. Patients can accidentally overdose, miss doses or discontinue treatment by patients without any consultation with their GP, all of which can be highly detrimental to their health and well-being and costly to the NHS and social care budgets,” explains Professor Curran.

We hear a lot about the dementia “time bomb” that is about to explode but in some cases it has already gone off. The needs of people experiencing dementia are placing an increasing demand on health and social care services and the lives and finances of affected individuals and their families. An estimated 25% of beds in acute hospitals are occupied by patients with dementia.

“Adherence issues may lead to avoidable and costly hospital admissions or require a full community social work and financial assessment before a package of home care is implemented. Often family carers or professional carers may have to visit the home a number of times each day, purely to help someone with dementia to take their medicines as prescribed, while they remain effectively independent in other areas of their life. In a community setting Biodose Connect™ could significantly reduce these issues of poor adherence, preventing unnecessary, distressing and costly hospital admissions providing better and safer outcomes for patients,” continues Professor Curran. “This could also significantly delay the need for provision of costly home social care packages, maintaining the independence that most people with dementia prefer and reducing stress and burden for family carers.”

With the number of people with dementia set to double in the next 30 years, a focus on improving medicines adherence in patients is crucial to achieving better outcomes. According to the Alzheimer’s Society report - Dementia UK 2014, by 2015 dementia will affect around 850,000 people living in the UK, costing the NHS £4.3 billion and the social care budget will be an estimated £11.3 billion a year with a further £11.4 billion borne by informal family cares or people with dementia or their families paying for privately funded care.

It is hoped that the study will start in January 2015 with an initial recruitment of 60 patients in the first phase once approval for the study to go ahead has been granted.

For further information on the Quantum Pharmaceutical Group visit www.quantumpharmaceuticalgroup.com

For more information about Biodose Connect™ visit www.protomed.co.uk

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Lauren Wilkinson .