Doctors fail to grasp concept of concordance

Doctors are not grasping the concept of concordance in prescribing, says a progress report from the Task Force on Medicines Partnership, published this week.

But the report also admits that there is widespread misunderstanding about what the term actually means.

The partnership, which includes healthcare professionals, academics, patients, and representatives from the drug industry and from the NHS, was set up in April 2001 by the Department of Health.

It aims to help patients get the most out of their medicines and to try to stem the huge immediate and long term costs incurred by the NHS when patients do not take prescribed drugs. More than £230m ($370m; €330m) worth of …