Making the Most of your Medicines programme

The Making the Most of your Medicines programme is a unique initiative from AstraZeneca for community pharmacists. Aiming to create a long-term sustainable approach to delivering patient support through community pharmacy, the programme builds on the skills and relationships of community pharmacists by providing support so they are able to help their patients to make the most of certain AstraZeneca medicines.

Increasing patient adherence

In practice, we observe that patient adherence with medicines is a significant problem, with one in six people failing to take their medicines correctly or to fully adhere to the recommendations made by their prescriber¹. The reasons why many patients cannot or will not take their medicines, however, are poorly understood. The Making the Most of your Medicines programme recognises that patients' beliefs about their medicines play a role in the success or failure of therapy, and therefore aims to improve patient outcomes by addressing the issues that might present a barrier to adherence - in effect, helping patients to take their AstraZeneca medicines as prescribed.

Why community pharmacy?

Though AstraZeneca recognises the challenges that community pharmacist's face in delivering better patient care, it also recognises the unique position they occupy at the junction of patient, prescriber and medicine. The community pharmacist is a trusted source of information and support for patients, and plays an increasingly important role in helping patients get the most from their medicines. The community pharmacist is ideally placed to help patients better understand their therapy and address their concerns and aspirations for their treatment. AstraZeneca believes it can support community pharmacy in communicating with patients to understand the barriers to adherence and how they can be overcome.

Maximising patient adherence is a major challenge, but is one that presents an opportunity to enhance the community pharmacists' role in the NHS. Meeting that challenge is essential to ensure the best outcomes for patients (often with serious conditions) and ultimately, to deliver our shared agenda of more effective and efficient healthcare for patients.

¹ O'Connell N. Stick with it! Patient compliance. Community Pharmacy 2005: 14-15