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Overprescribing: 10% of items dispensed in primary care are inappropriate, review finds

BMJ 2021; 374 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n2338 (Published 22 September 2021) Cite this as: BMJ 2021;374:n2338
  1. Elisabeth Mahase
  1. The BMJ

An estimated 10% of items dispensed in primary care in England are inappropriate, a government review into overprescribing has said.

The review, commissioned in 2018, also found that 15% of people took five or more medicines a day, while around one in five hospital admissions in over 65s was caused by adverse effects of medicines.

The report said that the key to stopping overprescribing was “medicines optimisation”—which would mean ensuring that patients had the right medicines prescribed, at the right time, in the right doses. It …

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