This conference took place in the RSPGB assembly hall on 8 September and was attended by almost 100 key decision makers from the voluntary health sector. Delegates included chief executives, chairs, trustees, service managers and service users. The conference was jointly organised by Medicines Partnership and the Long Term Medical Conditions Alliance.
The event was chaired by David Pink, Chief Executive of LMCA. He welcomed delegates and handed over to Joanne Shaw, Director of Medicines Partnership, who spoke about Sharing Prescribing Decisions. She was followed by Melinda Letts, Chair of the Committee on Safety of Medicines Patient Information Working Group, member of the Medicines Information Project Board and a Director of Ask About Medicines Week. Melinda spoke about Improving Medicines Information.
A session took place titled Perspectives on Partnership with presentations from a GP (Jim Kennedy), a community pharmacist (Riaz Esmail), a patient organisation (Peter Cardy) and a patient (David Cahill). This was followed by a stimulating panel discussion.
After coffee, delegates broke into small groups to discuss how patient organisations could engage with the shared decision making agenda. Discussions were very lively and a precis of the key themes that emerged can be found on the Medicines Partnership website.
In the afternoon, the rapt audience was delighted by a presentation from Heinz Wolff, Emeritus Professor of Bioengineering at Brunel University and TV personality. Heinz 's talk was entitled "One swallow doesn't make a treatment" and set out his exciting ideas about medicine taking in the future.
The afternoon drew to a close with a presentation by Joanne Shaw about Ask About Medicines Week and small group discussions about how patient organisations could get involved.
Feedback from the evaluation forms demonstrates that delegates found this a very informative, stimulating and entertaining day.
Presentations from the conference are available to download below, in pdf format.
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