Doctors’ drug ignorance putting lives at risk

The Times prominently features the news that Sir Michael Rawlins, Professor of Clinical Pharmacology at Newcastle University and chairman of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, has claimed that NHS patients are at risk of adverse reactions to prescribed medications because doctors’ training on prescription is insufficient. He is quoted as saying “there has been a decline in teaching of prescribing and basic pharmacology.  The GMC, which ought to be seeing to this, is not putting its back into it.  They are not insisting that young doctors are taught about safe prescribing, which has been declining substantially over the past few years”.

Adverse drug reactions contribute to at least 250,000 hospital admissions and 5,000 deaths each year, according to the British Medical Association.

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