Evidence suggests that being on multiple medicines increases an individual’s risk of harm and contributes to hospital admissions and poor therapeutic outcomes. It also increases cost to the NHS and can result in medicines waste.

It has been estimated that as many as three million people in the UK will be living with longterm conditions managed with polypharmacy by 2018.

Managing polypharmacy rationally is the responsibility of all health and social care professionals, working together with effective communication across all sectors and professions.

Who is affected?

Older people are more likely to experience polypharmacy than younger people because of multimorbidities (the co-occurrence of two or more chronic medical conditions in one person), many of which are age-related, such as dementia.

However, there are an increasing number of people living with multimorbidities who are under 65 years of age, including those with advanced cancer and learning disabilities, and evidence shows that a high proportion of these people are taking multiple medicines.