The National Polypharmacy Programme, a successful patient safety programme set up by doctors and pharmacists and run by the NHS’s Health Innovation Network to cut the number of medicines patients take, has been forced to close owing to lack of funding.
At a conference last week (29 September)—celebrating the programme’s achievements over its three years of operation—programme managers said that they had been unable to secure ongoing funding from NHS England, after the government’s decision to abolish the wider organisation.1
Its closure comes despite evidence of its success in improving health outcomes and prescribing safety, as well as saving the NHS money.
Launched in April 2022, the programme used a three pillar approach to tackle inappropriate prescribing across all 42 integrated care boards in England. First, it selected patients who were on multiple medications in each primary care …
