Improving medication safety in UK care homes: challenges and current perspective

In the UK, there are policy and regulatory concerns regarding the governance of care homes and healthcare provision within these homes. From a public health perspective, these issues can pose significant challenges to the provision of safe and quality medication use services to care home residents. The objective of this paper is to highlight an important and neglected issue for the growing population of institutionalized older adults. We reviewed relevant literature for the years 2000 to present and identified recent efforts undertaken to improve medication safety standards in UK care homes. We consider the limitations and reasons for the National Health Service's restricted role and lack of leadership in providing medical services for this institutionalized population. The efforts taken by the Department of Health and other healthcare authorities targeting medication safety in care homes are also highlighted. In order to improve the quality of healthcare, specifically in areas related to medication safety and quality use of medicines, interventions need to be taken by the national government and similarly by local authorities and NHS commissioners.