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Deprescribing is not just the responsibility of pharmacists, co-chairs for the English Deprescribing Network (EDeN) have stressed.
Speaking at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s annual conference in London on 17 November 2019, Cherise Howson, co-chair of EDeN, said the network has “engaged and encouraged lots of other healthcare professionals and not only healthcare professionals, but patients and the public, to be involved in this movement”.
The network officially launched in June 2019 at the Clinical Pharmacy Congress in London, one month after The Pharmaceutical Journal reported that EDeN would join similar networks in Canada and Australia in encouraging the more rational use of medicines across England.
Speaking to delegates, Howson said deprescribing is the responsibility of “every sector so it’s across … secondary care, primary care, community pharmacy”.
“We know in some sectors there are incentives not to deprescribe and I think we need to overcome those and realise at the end of the day we’re all working for the better of patients, in terms of patient care,” she continued.
Emma McClay, also a co-chair for EDeN, told delegates that the network has accrued “just under 500 members” in its first five months of operation.
She said that the membership ranges from “pharmacists, GPs and a couple of nurses”.
However, she said the network membership is “mostly pharmacists” from specialties including cardiovascular, diabetes and paediatric pharmacists.
McClay added that the EDeN is in talks with the Royal Colleges of Anaesthetists and Physicians over its involvement in the network.
