Ensuring patients' satisfaction with information about their medicines

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Patients crave information. I am writing this while an inpatient at a London teaching hospital, and the need for information is almost palpable. Patients exchange whispered conversations in which they pass on intelligence (or not) about the ward, its staff, and medical procedures. Visiting time is characterised by families getting cross with the patients because they can't answer detailed questions and “should ask the doctor”. Nurses are generally amiable but know little about the individual patients. The pharmacist stalks the end of the beds, reading drug charts while avoiding eye contact and failing to introduce him/herself. Doctors parry questions with the deftness of an Olympic fencer, or give a direct answer which, while factually correct, leaves one yearning for context within which to interpret the facts.

While a patient can be dissatisfied yet cured in hospital (because things are done to the patient), in primary care patients generally look after themselves so they need to be willing partners. The importance of the active cooperation of patients is never more clear than in the case of medicines, the …