Brown bag medication review and its potential value in primary care

Abstract

Polypharmacy and poor patient compliance with prescribed medication regimens can result in patients failing to get the maximum benefit from their medicines and suffering adverse effects from them. The elderly are at particular risk in this regard, and problems arising from medication account for a significant proportion of the admissions to hospital for this group. ‘Brown bag’ medication review is a technique developed in the US, through which community pharmacists help to resolve patients’ medication-related problems. This article describes a pilot brown bag scheme run in south-east London. The results demonstrated that schemes based on the US model could be run successfully in the UK, with the potential for providing improved patient care and reducing NHS costs. The project also identified an important role for primary care nurses in the successful operation of brown bag schemes.