Hospital pharmacists committed to safer use of medicines in older age

The European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP) represents more than 22.000 hospital pharmacists in 35 European countries. Recently the organisation has released a position paper on an ageing society which highlights the importance of making the best use of hospital pharmacists’ expertise to address issues that are increasingly prevalent among the older population, such as polypharmacy and drug adherence.

More specifically, the position paper :

• calls on national governments and health system managers to acknowledge hospital pharmacists’ drug expertise by investing in medication reconciliation and optimisation roles in all healthcare facilities, including nursing homes, as a key part of the European level response to the increasing prevalence of polypharmacy;
• calls for strengthened inter-sector communication, coordination and multi-disciplinary collaboration as critical approaches to meeting the health system challenges of an ageing society;
• strongly supports regulatory innovation to increase the participation of older patients with possible multi-morbidities in clinical trials;
• urges both governments and the EU to address the growing challenge of an ageing health workforce by investing in education, mobility and best practice sharing.

For more information:

• EAHP website: https://www.eahp.eu/
• EAHP position paper on an ageing society

AGE is very much committed to ensuring a safer and more adequate use of medicines in older age, this is why we are part of the Patients and Consumers’ Working Parties at the European Medicines Agency. Our representative within this group, Barbro Westerholm has also been nominated within the EMA geriatric expert group.